The Dragon Advances
by Byakugan789
Summary: When the Kree Monoliths being destroyed opened the rift to Xibalba in Agents of Shield season 4, the explosion went a BIT further than anyone understood. Connecting multiple realities, the shockwave shuffled people and events in unexpected ways and the lost must find a way home...
1. In Communist China, Adventure choses you

Authors Note: I've been reading a lot of MCU stories recently and ideas of how to do it... not better necessarily, but differently at least, keep popping into the back of my mind and distracting me from my numerous other stories. SO... I thought I'd bite the bullet and start writing this one. See if it can purge the ideas so I can get back to other works... or perhaps become something in its own right. For those of you willing to sit down and read this through, allow me to offer my preemptive thanks. I would deeply appreciate comments from nitpicks to criticism to praise, but avoid flames if you don't mind, simply insulting an author because you didn't like something does nothing except bleed your own stress. If you must rage against anything I post henceforth, please provide at least a paragraph on why it was out of character, a plot-hole or an accidental tangent into soap boxing rather than intentional philosophy from the current presenter.

Boring stuff out of the way; ON WITH THE STORY!

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

November 31st 1986

The hardest part about falling through an unstable rip between time, space and half a dozen realities should be the feeling of being simultaneously trapped without air or the ability to move while being drawn back and forth through a spiked wheel press built for tenderizing meat. For others, perhaps it would be watching helpless as others slide through the same hole, screaming as they're bent, twisted, crushed and silly stringed in the process of moving from different realities TO further different ones still, their screaming souls drawing out a symphony of terror and pain that could probably star in Lucifer's hell or Lovecraft's spheres.

It's not.

The hardest part comes after, when you are stuck lying on a rock in the middle of nowhere for three hours afterwards. Why? Because that's when you get over the shock and what you just experienced hits you; if you can't suppress it. Despite being somewhere in the middle of really tall snow capped mountains the cold doesn't dull the pain any; after all, its not really my body that's been under assault. Eventually, I am able to do something more than just lay there shaking like a leaf and wheezing in pain; and rolled over.

The good thing is that other than a giant bruise from my landing on my back and maybe some unknowable internal radiation damage from travel I'm really not physically hurt. I have no open wounds, I'm not bleeding out externally or internally, and through the pain I can form coherent thoughts... _Mostly_ of the curses. My body examined, my nerves calming (somewhat) I distract myself and begin to take in more of my surroundings.

If the rock weren't obvious enough, I'm not in Singapore anymore. All around are mountains around me are of the distinctly natural sort. Peaks that would extend into the clouds, if there were any. My fall brought me into a temperate valley somewhere between them. There doesn't appear to be any valley leading _out_ of this hole, it's just one rock face flowing into another, so until I learn to fly or get some really good furs and climbing gear, there's no getting out of here.

Wonderful.

Checking the more immediate area around me reveals it's not _just_ me that came through. The Starbucks table and half of my chair are off to either side of the rock, my computer is on the grass just beyond folded open and lying on its edges like a ^ mark. The power cord and mouse are missing, possibly in other dimensions, possibly still plugged into the wall socket back where I was spending my surprise permanent vacation.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that the tear in reality is closing before my eyes and my son, Nick isn't anywhere in visual range. If I'm lucky, that means he's walked off in search of help. Given I was unlucky enough to get sucked into the devils ass crack however, even chances he's either in another different dimension or still in Singapore.

If he's not here, I hope he's still in Singapore; there at least he's got my account info in his phone, citizens papers and a place set up to live.

Fuck...

Rolling over onto my knees, I check the ground around me, but I've no _real _training as a tracker. I've no idea what I'm looking for beyond what we learned in the Boy-Scouts and that was forever ago. Seriously, how the fuck are you supposed to tell the difference in grass that's been stepped on and shit something's rolled through?

After chasing down several "leads" I'm left with little more than some extra luggage. Nicks backpack, my 15 year old Navy duffel, an airline neck-pillow, a potted plant, half of a barista (poor guy), a rack full of coffee and no indication of Nick. For better OR worse.

Fighting down a new layer of panic attacks, I began calling out his name, using drill sergeants pitch and mountain echo's to be sure I could be heard all over the valley. In between calls I gathered everything into a pile and began organizing and repacking it. Stuck in a foreign planet or reality? Take stock of your resources and plan for shelter. I had no SEER training, just camping and merit badges, but for the moment, that will have to be enough.

Step one? Find water. Water meant not dying of dehydration. Water meant animals. Animals, in a foreign mountain with no idea which plants and berries are edible, meant food. After I found water, the next step would be shelter.

Scanning the valley again, closer this time, reveals the tree line. There are few enough trees to begin with, but there ARE trees among the grass and crags of this valley. Turning slowly I manage to find what looks like it might be a waterfall, an odd enough sight in mountains this sharp, and below it... are those buildings?

Well fuck me, how did I miss those before?

Shaking my head, I call out again. "_**Nicodemus!**_" When even a minute later there's no answer, I gather up what I can and begin moving towards the cliff face where I saw civilization.

It takes me two hours of trekking through the tall grass and random slopes before I can make out my target clearly. If my eyes don't deceive me, I'm looking at an Asian medieval city of sorts. Given the remote local, likely Tibetan Monastery, but I could be wrong. Maybe they're Uyghurs? I stumble on, slowly becoming more sure of foot despite my growing exhaustion. I have to reach the temple before nightfall. Silly me, but I didn't pack a thermal sleeping back for this surprise dimensional incursion into the Himalayas and sleeping outside is almost as dangerous as the dehydration I'll start suffering some time tomorrow.

There is a problem with my plan however,.. in the mountains, the sun sets before it reaches the horizon. I'm beginning to despair, and staving it off by searching my travel-bag for the blankets when a stone appears out of nowhere an smacks me on the side of the face. It's smooth and flat, at least where it hits me, but I can feel the skin break anyway as my vision explodes into stars and tinnitus shrieks its siren call in my ears. My falling to the ground should have allowed me to dodge the next rock which was already in the air, but whoever had thrown it had apparently accounted for that and the projectile hit me in the shoulder, spilling the contents of the bag everywhere.

Shaking my head and raising my arm to ward off further blows at least to my head, I look around, scrambling to get up. Sure enough, my assailant is in view... though... unless those blow screwed up my vision more than I thought, he's got one hell of an arm. Easily 100 feet away is a bald kid in a mustard yellow robe. His features are strongly Chinese, but the sort of dark that comes from a natural complexion rather than tanning. That should just about confirm it, but... I don't know, there's just something off about him compared to the Tibetans as they're always depicted.

Then I see his mouth moving, and a second later hear the words, and my questions are answered.

He's speaking Mandarin.

I know maybe 200 words in Mandarin. Out of thousands. And given the importance of tonal variation, probably really badly. I'd been counting on Singapore's maintaining English as an official language to give me time to adjust, but nooooooo... Fucking portal... And I'm deflecting...

"_Need. Help. Please?_ _Am lost I._" I sound out.

The man gave me a disgusted look and both of his fists erupted into a golden brilliance, lit from within, as though a flashlight were placed against the skin, only much brighter. The power flowed up his arms and pooled in his throat and then he spoke again.

"Follow me, fool." the robed... mage? Monk? Sage? told me, English in a perfect Bostonian accent overlaying his Chinese words, making a strange echo of sorts. "I do not know how you got past me, but the Elders will know how to deal with you."

With that, he turned, his robe loosening enough for me to catch a glimpse of a tattoo on his bare chest. That of a certain dragon. The glowing fists and the tattoo connected in my mind and I knew where I was.

I was in K'un-Lun, fifth of the seven Chinese heavens, and the man who had assaulted me was the Iron Fist.

I'm in a Marvel universe. But which one?

_Fuuuck_... I think. But then I think about it further and realize something. With all of the power available for the taking... Perhaps my son isn't truly lost to me. I will not give up hope. Not just yet.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

December 1st 1986

The "elders" as I learned around midnight, were Yu Ti the Jade Serpent, Lei Kung the Thunderer and Priya the Red Crane. These were the three immortal leaders of the Order of the Crane Mother, trainers of the Iron Fist and responsible for the protection of K'un-Lun. None of them speak English, and all four of them are offended by my attempts to speak Chinese, so the Iron Fist continues that chi-trick with his throat and acts as translator for us. I explain to them my trip through the portal, the rock where I landed, and beseech them for possible sightings of my son, Nick. They speak amongst each other for a while before the Iron Fist returns his attention to me.

"The Crane Mother," he gestures to Priya, "bids that I do my duty and slay you, protecting K'un-Lun from your trespass. But the August Personage in Jade" He gestures to Yu-Ti, "councils compassion. You did not come here of your own will and mean us no harm. Unless you have more words to speak to us, this leaves your fate to the Honorable Thunderer, who deems you nearly unfit for training."

I take in a deep breath and consider. Before heading for Singapore I'd worked at the Pilgrims Point power station. The Singapore government had been willing to... overlook a number of things for me as a member of their own Nuclear facility under construction. To that purpose, I had spent the last several weeks frantically studying up on my Chinese and still had the Chinese to English Dictionary with me even after the dimensional transfer. I was far from stupid and honestly, I didn't fancy my chances with the Thunderer. But I could perhaps do something equally valuable to protecting the immortal city and gain myself some much needed power in the process.

"I am a scholar and builder." I told him. "If the honorable elders would allow it, I would serve K'un-Lun in such a capacity."

The Iron fist repeated my words to the trio and Yu-Ti laughed. The crane mother then said something that the Iron Fist translated as "A scholar who cannot speak is a fish in the sky." I got about half of it that time.

I pull the dictionary out of my backpack and flip through it a few times. Once I'm sure of what I want to say, I speak. "_I am Fast learner. Offer chance, honored elder. This humble I, prove worth._"

Priya marched up to me and snatched the book from my hands, flipping through it and speaking rapidly. Yu-Ti then took the book from her and began studying it himself. The five of us sat there for some time as Yu Ti studied the book. Until eventually, he spoke. His words were halting, the pronunciation is strange, but it was clearly English.

"This one is curious," The Jade Pinnacle asked "what he would build for us?"

"With tools and time? Anything." I tell him. "I think a better question, is what do you need?"

"From this one?" Yu-Ti asks, looking amused "'K'un-Lun needs nothing. Even so, To remain in tranquility and safety each resident of heaven must serve until they either rejoin the Wheel Of Reincarnation or cross the Bridge Of Destiny into Nirvana."

I nod slowly. "What would my duties be? Had I nothing to offer?" I ask. "And how do most people get here?" I had an idea from the comic, but they never went into detail. What does it mean to be a city of Heaven? They fight for the order of of precedent in heaven, but what does that mean? And the TV show offered even less. Though... there was something wrong about the Crane Mother, Priya. Something I couldn't put my finger on.

The man hummed "I suppose you would want to know why you are here." He said after considering a moment. "There are three types or residents in K'un-Lun. First and oldest are the seekers, we who follow the Dao, seeking enlightenment. The seekers built K'un-Lun in the Age of Heroes when Dragons roamed the land and it was common knowledge that men could rise to immortality through **sheer merit**. Over the ages, those who seek the true path have continued to find us here, entering when the stars are right. Next there are the dead. K'un-Lun was forged within this valley because it was here many thousand years ago the first Buddha found the dead queuing for passage beyond. They now reside with their families since past in the civilian quarter until such a time as they seek Nirvana, rejoin the wheel of reincarnation or suffer dissolution having lost all who remember them. Finally, there are the natives. Children of the seekers, the dead and in some special cases, both."

He pauses again, taking a sip of tea brought to him in that moment by a servant. "You are an anomaly. You do not study any Dao, nor are you dead."

"Yet." Spoke Priya, looking up from where she was studying my pocket dictionary with a glare.

Yu-Ti inclined his head "not yet." He agreed. "Certainly you were not born here, Even the S'ahra Sharn know how to speak properly. Instead, you penetrated the heavens through unknown means during a time when the path was thought closed."

His eyes flick to the man still standing behind me. "It is, honorable Dragon." The Iron Fist spoke in his double voice. "I checked it after first discovering him."

I grimace. "I told you, I fe..."

"Yes, you fell through a tear in the dao" Priya interrupted "and seek only your son. Likely another green eyed devil with mane of blood."

I sat there, blinking at her for several long moments, trying to imagine what brought on this hostility. It's one thing for a translator to tell you some lady wants you dead, but another to hear the venomous words from her own lips. Then I remembered old Chinese legends, or at least tropes about them, say green eyes as a sign of evil or demonic possession. A lot of older European tales did too, that was where you got the green eyed jealousy jokes, but seriously...

"His hair is copper, actually" I reply, "I blame his mothers mane of gold." She glances up at me sharply, shocked at something, but hides it quickly enough I would have missed it had we not been glaring at each other. Thinking on it, she's probably not used to backtalk. Now more than ever, I want to avoid the order of the Crane Mother, as otherwise she's likely to try and punish me before killing me. The Yu-Ti's explanation did illuminate why she's so eager to kill me though. City of heaven, meet faithless foreigners. By dying, I would go from something threatening her home and those she was invested in with uncertainty to something well within the expected range of experience. A perfectly female rational.

I still think she's a bitch.

Granted, she's also a powerful bitch who I should be wary of further aggravating. Even ignoring I'm in a place with super-powered martial arts monks that is reportedly removed from reality, literally the only thing keeping her political clout from obliterating me like a Clinton whistle-blower is Yu-Ti's disapproval. And given the pair of them just learned English in a fucking hour she's probably smart enough to make it look like I did it to myself.

Yu'Ti seemed amused by our spat and continued. "As for your duties," he continues, "as an outsider you would be expected to train under Lei Kung or Priya as a protector of the city. Later you would be allowed to take up other hobbies to support the city. Running water, farming, carpentry and masonry, black-smithing and pottery. Being a scholar, scrivener, brewer, alchemist, artist, musician or dancer would require you to prove yourself worthy of a divine peach and joining the noble immortals as a permanent resident of K'un-Lun."

My heart... sank. "By running water, you mean..?"

"Carrying water up the mountain from the falls." This time it was Lei Kung who spoke, his voice deeper than you'd normally expect from an Asian man. Looking over at him, I saw my book was now in _his_ hands. Good fucking god, how intelligent are these people? Or is it just a languages thing? In the comics, at least two of the three here were a million years old and K'un Lun had a magical translation effect, but here at least that was a special Iron Fist trick and the others were learning it from my god damned book. "The city has wells to feed it, but this is good training."

Oooof _course it is..._ savages. I carefully kept my reaction off my face, but by Yu'Ti's indulgent smile and twinkling eyes I suspect I failed spectacularly. "And the dead?"

"The same," the old man admitted "except their participation is the primary use of their time until they engage in their next life."

Nothing ventured nothing gained. "What if I were to build you a means of transporting water easily across the city and into peoples homes, even their rooms on demand with enough work?"

Yu-Ti looked intrigued, but Lei Kung scowled. "Avoiding honest labor is why you are fat, outsider. It will take many months to correct, and..."

"Let him speak, Thunderer." The 'Jade serpent' counseled placatingly. "Tell me, traveler, what would this take?"

"Time, mostly. A lot of wood and rope for the transport system. Ideally access to the smiths and potters if you want it piped into peoples homes. I'd offer hot and cold running water, but I don't think there's enough fuel or metal for me to build proper water heaters."

The two of them looked at each other and chuckled as though at a good joke while Priya actually looked... kindly, at me?

"You might be surprised," The Thunderer told me "what can be found in Heaven."

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

We continued to talk late into the night, but In the end, my words merely amused the leader of K'un-Lun and its order of protectors and I received little.

But little is still better than nothing.

The Crane Mother does not get to kill me for being a Green Eyed Devil with Hair of Blood. I do not have to attend the daily beatings ancient martial artists such as The Thunderer imagine to be classes. But I also do not get access to the library at the Hall of Venerable Ancestors and will be required to participate in the daily running of water from the temple cities various wells and waterfalls.

Imagine... A fabled City of Heaven... _not having running water._ It's a crime.

They do have a pretty impressive sewer system though, for a medieval city. Running beneath all of the toilets is a series of tunnels tall enough for a child to stand in that uses the flow of the falls above to wash their sewage down the mountain and past S'ahra-Sharn, the city of outcasts formed from those who would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven. I had missed the place because it was accessed by following the river through a hole in the rock wall of the pocket dimension to a pueblo style cave city. While I vaguely recognized it from reading Iron Fist decades ago, I mostly know this because I was threatened with being sent there by the oh so benevolent masters should I fail.

Fail at what? Why delivering on my foolish promise of revolutionizing the cities water supply. Should I succeed, I'll be allowed progressively more access to the cities resources and facilities and eventually prove my worth as a scholar in the Hall of Venerable Ancestors. Otherwise, I'll be condemned to what I remember from the comic being described as "and evil Mirror of K'un-lun ". Fun, right? And the S'ahra Sharn are only K'un-Lun's closest enemies. From outside are The Hand, formed from five travelers such as myself who had been granted immediate access to the Hall of Ancestral Knowledge as I was asking. They had first tried and failed to gain immortality from the Divine Peach Tree at the city's heart. Then they had tried to use forbidden techniques from the library to cultivate their way to immortality quickly. When They were stopped, they assaulted Shao-Lao, temporarily killing him and taking his bones to become corrupted immortals. After this, they were finally banished, considered too dangerous even to leave in the under-city of S'ahra Sharn.

Thankfully at least, the H'ylthri plant monsters don't exist in this marvel continuity. Or at the very least, they don't plague K'un-Lun's slopes. That's the domain of the undead farmers, and battles between the Order of the Crane Mother and S'ahra Sharn. Those who die in those battles return at the Gate of Heaven, a Japanese style archway the city is built around, making the valley and endless war reminiscent of MMO's.

My first four days are spent collecting my spilled luggage, settling in and learning about the water system as it stands now. I am provided a small single room domicile of piled stone, no toilet and a woven reed mat as a bed which I replace with my blanket, a few towels, my fluffy bathrobe and the airline neck pillow. Practically royal furnishings compared to my neighbors. The city also provides each new resident a set of saffron colored burlap robes, which I wear as camouflage over my own surviving garments. Two bowls of rice for food are provided daily by the city, and I am required to provide my own water. Each of the districts have their own set of water runners. The Red Crane's Pagoda where the order lives and trains is tended by a dozen or so disciples. They get their water from the bottom of the cliff on which the city sits, gathering it from the waterfall and not the cities sewage outflow, thankfully. The trip is about half a mile each way and disciples are expected to carry 20 or 30 buckets each day as a means of building stamina. The Noblemen's palaces have servants who take care of them, usually from a cliff right beside the nearest of several waterfalls and the civilian quarter have their own communal wells.

My fifth day, I go down one of the wells at night, carrying a goat tallow candle to check out the water supply. To my eternal gratitude, it's not connected to the sewers, but rather a large grotto. Said grotto is filled with bioluminescent fish and fungus that, rather than polluting the water and turning it brackish, seem to instead purify the water, gravitating to my dripping dirt and sweat, absorbing it as food. The water is slightly sweet indicating a strong content of either iron or phosphorus. Judging by the glowing creatures, I'm guessing phosphorus, but hell, this is K'un-lun, maybe it's iron and the glow is their chi.

Taking several of the fish with me, I share a few of them with the locals the next morning in exchange for two long coils of rope and some woodworking assistance. The first well is finished reworking a week and a half later. A hand crank spins two spoked axles. Mounted on those axles were a pair of knotted ropes which caught on the spokes, keeping the rope from slipping. Between the knots at even intervals were tied buckets with the rope affixed to either side. As the buckets reached the apex of the well and went over the axles, they would dump their water into a tray which opened into a slide. This slide emptied into a **_large_** basin. Civilians could then either fill their buckets from the spout, or the basin. This quickly proved popular as it allowed the morning water run go from a never ending issue you had to get up early for, to a quick experience of about an hour.

I didn't charge for use of my contraption, as that would take too long and piss off the undead residents of the temple city, but I did take all of the fish that ended up in my buckets. Those fish, apart from upping my meals to three every day and increasing their quality, were traded for more and more expert help in converting more of the wells around the city to the same system. The work quickly proliferated beyond my control as my hirelings caught onto the fish racket I was running and the good will of the other locals.

The experience also forc... allowed me to rapidly develop my Mandarin vocabulary and enunciation. As it turns out, Mandarin is something of a bitch to learn even with a handy dandy dictionary as tone, nasal clarity and various modifiers have a LOT to do with being properly understood. There is literally a 200 word long poem of saying nothing but "shi" in different intonations. It talks about a lunatic noble and his encounter with a lion.

Learning the subtleties of Mandarin were not entirely a trial however, as it did allow me to learn a great deal about china as it evolved over the centuries and where it was now. MOST of the dead move on just about as soon as they learn about the wheel of reincarnation, but there are a few in every generation that that stay and some have been here as far back as the evolution of the Chinese from homo-sapiens-erectus mating with the Denisovans in Mongolia and ballooning out from there. That dude, Ja-uruk, looks the part and says his family has their own tower here that stretches from that period all the way through china's 100 or more dynasties to Shanghai about the time the British took over.

The whole family tree is there with no more than a 1 generation gap every now and then. Or, at least that's what Lao-er, his great-X granddaughter from 10th century CE told me over a fried fish. She's got some amazing stories and is pretty consistent on the names and details.

It's in this manner that I learn the latest crop of dead are from the china's 1980's by the British calendar. By Chinese date, the year is 6820, a number made suspect by every dynasty since the flood resetting the date to year 0. By K'un Lun's calendar the year is 472 of the 327th era. Each era being 1000 years long. The remaining dead were mostly Taoists, with a good mix of Buddhists for substance and just a few Christians and Muslims for flavor. The only atheists are from Lao-er and Ja-uruk's family from the time before K'un-lun's founding. The freshly dead were from the tail end of China's "great leap forward" on all sides of the political divide, from genocidal communist to dissident from the killing fields to normie Chang townsman to city slicking businessman and student. Mutants were a thing, but either none entered K'un-Lun or they keep quiet about it after getting here. There had also been a number of super-groups making small messes of things ever since world war two where Captain America and the Red Skull kicked off a fad. Some of the older residents thought that this was nothing new however, as there had always been the rare super-powered anarchist fighting the medically or religiously empowered emperor's cousin in china for as far back as any of the solid-ghosts I've talked to so far remembered.

The good thing, I suppose, was that it helped me figure out just where I was. Marvel 199999 or thereabouts, the Movies Universe. This, I determined because one of the more helpful ghosts was a member of the Masters of the Mystic Arts based out of Kamir-Taj 500 years ago. Their Ancient One was Tilda Swinton, a detail I found to be highly telling as the MCU was the one and _only_ continuity to gender bait the Ancient One. My personal head-cannon is that this is the very next universe over, Earth 200,000 because of the presence of Mutants, particularly the X-men. I don't yet know if X-men First Class is a thing here, but one of the ghosts remembers being killed by Charles Xavier in Korea and another by Sabertooth and Wolverine as a pair in Vietnam. As the X-men still aren't included in the MCU it can't be strictly vanilla.

It's as I'm listening to a story from Gna-kalhara about how the Mu empire, now sunk beneath the south china sea, had been working on a lunar colony when the great flood which ended the last Ice age hit that I was called back to face the council. Fa-Lin, The Cranes Daughter came to fetch me by literally grabbing the straps of my backpack and leaping onto a nearby roof from ground level. The roof was three stories up. Fa-lin for reference is not actually one of Priya's daughters, but rather one of her direct disciples. She's a chi-powered martial artist straight out of a Xianxia novel and the only reason she'll never be Iron fist in Danny Rand and Orsen Randell's place is that she's undead and the Iron Fist has to be a living weapon. Apparently, Shao-lao eats spirits as though they were lemon drops in Dumbledore's pocket, no matter how far along their cultivation is.

Good dragon?

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

March 7th 1987

As I'm sat down before the council, I'm introduced to another leader of this merry city, Li Hua, the White Tiger. While the Yu'Ti, the Jade Serpent, The August Personage in Jade, rules over the city as a whole and directly oversees the noble (immortal) cultivators, Priya the Crane Mother leads the inner defense and Lei Kung the Thunderer sees to the outer defense, Li Hua The White Tiger apparently oversees all of the fiddly bits, such as the wheel of reincarnation and civilian housing, development and industry for both the living and the dead.

In the comics, she's also a Russian/Korean half breed who's smoking hot, clad in strips of red leather and wielding battle fans. Seeing her here and having her introduced to me, not as the champion of Tiger Island the third city of heaven "The Tiger's beautiful Daughter" but as White Tiger herself, helps me put a finger on what's been bothering me about Priya and her daughters for the last three months. Priya, the Crane mother, is supposed to be the ruler of another city, K'un-zi; and Davos, son of Lei Kung, would have been her immortal weapon the Red Crane after the man failed to take the position as Iron Fist from Danny Rand. That sparked another memory about watching season 2 of Marvel's Iron Fist TV series.

A fact which distracted me from the question Li Hua was asking me.

"_I'm sorry,_" I told her in Mandarin, "_could you please repeat that?_"

The woman, dressed in a tight red silk cheongsam and definitively Korean rather than Russian, smirks at me and runs a finger down her curves. "I was asking," she tells me in English, "what facilities you imagine you'll need for the next phase of your project. I feel I can offer you a fair amount of leeway given your industriousness and the faith you've cultivated in your fellow citizens."

"Ah, thank you." I replied, thinking furiously. "I suppose the next step would be piping, so I'll need the cooperation of the blacksmiths and Potters." I pause, thinking, "and a more complete map of the city than I've drawn so far, but I can take care of that." I'm not a city planner or civil engineer, so this will be something of a novel experience. Not new, per say, as the plants I'd worked on before had piping that stretched across miles of facility, but definitely different.

Yu-Ti hums and adds in Chinese. _"I am allowing you limited access to the hall of ancestors as well. Only the first floor. You have learned to speak properly, now you must learn to read._"

The other two, Crane and Thunderer look at him shocked, but he silences them with a gesture. Li Hua smiles however, revealing the secret. "I look forward to hot baths daily. Also, if the Yu-Ti is willing to allow you access to the library, I would suggest looking into wax paper and oil cloth in place of pottery and metal for piping."

I offer her a confused look. "Why wax paper? Oil cloth could be sewn tight enough, in theory, I suppose, but paper? It'd never hold up to the strain..."

"Amazing things can be done with the smallest amount of chi," she explains, "The first floor should be enough for that, I think."

My eyes widen and I struggle to keep expressions of glee and greed off of my face. "_I thank you for your trust, honorable elders._" I tell them, bowing deeply.

Priya snorts and Lei Kung shakes his head. "_You will not learn such things for a decade, at least._" he tells me dismissively. "_We expect you to keep working while you study._ Li Hua_, if I may, send him to the blacksmiths anyway. The boy needs the exercise._"

Standing straighter, I adjust my backpack and it's precious cargo. "_I will take that under advisement, honorable Thunderer._" I tell him, graciously, all the while planning to ignore the suggestion. Perhaps when I can have Chi aiding my recovery rather than a 42 year olds back, knees and poor rations. I've already entirely lost my first world fat over the last 3 months of small... relatively healthy meals.

Receiving a wave of dismissal, I turn and leave through the doors of the temple rather than the balcony I arrived on. Li Hua follows me outside, before summoning an assistant as if by magic and leaping away across the roofs of the immortal city.

"_The lady bids me take you to the smithy._" The young man with white hair and Japanese features tells me.

I frown. The potters would be more useful, but if I'm going to make clay pipes I suppose I need an extruder. Metal pipes are difficult to make without acetylene and rollers, but clay pipes you only need a funnel with a suspended plug. You COULD roll out the clay or hammer the copper flat and then weld either of them together with medieval tools, but the seams will be shit; prone to cracks, rust, separation and ill fitting sizes if done by any less than a skilled professional. In either case, it'll take a lot more time to do. The real trick will be fitting together watertight pumps and valves.

To my, perhaps rude, surprise, explaining what I wanted too the smiths wasn't difficult. The older ones already knew of the Chinese Rope and Chain pumps and there were already a few world war 1 era Japanese trying to drag their fellows into the modern era, so I wasn't even half through my drawing before they knew just what I was looking for and spinning off their own ideas, such as the screw, rotary and hydraulic pumps. Honestly, I think they were more eager than I was to do this project as it equated to a mandate from heaven to ignore their elders and get something done.

For my part, I ended up helping them load a blast furnace and start pulling copper tubing. I run coke through a wheel mill to crush it and feed it into the bellows to get the metal hot enough to be dragged through an extruder, something I hadn't thought possible with metal. To my knowledge that was only done for wire, and everything else was hammered or rolled.

The things you learn.

At the end of the day, I left the furnace with about a hundred feet of copper piping piled up for shaping. Li Hua's servant popped up almost immediately to remind us that this was going to the nobles houses and so to do our best work.

"_I'll also need to build large copper tubs to place on the roofs of each mansion._" I remind him.

He scowls at me. "_Why? Copper is expensive, you are only allowed this much because it is for the nobility._"

I grit my teeth, but speak calmly. "_Unless there is some chi magic involved I am not privy to, the water will need to be held on site in a location higher than where the nobles want it to flow to. Not doing so will require **more** copper. Further, one of the tubs, for there will be two, also needs to be insulated with a thatch that does not burn, so it can be heated with a minimum of fuel._" Fiberglass I expect, is going to be rather more difficult to come by, and forget foams. "_Li Hua was **very** eager to have heated water in her house without needing to wait for servants._" I explain pleasantly, subtly reminding him that the White Tiger thinks him inadequate.

I think he got the message, as his nose and ears flush red. "_I also have been given liberty to use the first floor of the Hall of Ancestral Knowledge._" I tell him. His eyes bulge, and he looks like he's about to strike me, but then his head jerks up and he gets an expression as if he's listening to something.

Grimacing, he nods. "_Follow me then_" he hisses. I do and he sets a brutal pace, which for him is probably a fast walk, the bastard.

Li Hau actually meets us there, smiling for her servant who just about melts into a puddle at the gesture. "Let's get you registered then." She says, guiding me into the enormous stone and red wood building. "The first level is scrolls and manuscripts we've allowed to be translated. They're arranged by those who return them, so organizing the shelves is a constant job for aspiring scholars. The second floor is original manuscripts penned across the ages. Scholars wishing to study there are required to translate on their own and keep the copies in house. The third floor is the hall of memories. where new books are transcribed by experienced cultivators from the imprint left behind by those who have passed on to reincarnation. The fourth floor is the Seat of the Dao, where cultivators record their paths for students of K'un Lun to study. The fifth and final floor is the labyrinth of shades where cultivators who cross the bridge of destiny imprint their secrets into Jade pillars that test the students seeking to prove worthy of such sage tutelage."

She stops at a desk and an attendant librarian rushes up to her. "Get this student a pass for the first floor" she orders him and he runs off to do as ordered.

"So, how do I get access to the higher floors?" I ask, seriously.

She laughs brightly, as though I've said something funny. When I look at her impassively, she quirks an eyebrow and laughs again. "Originally we allowed anyone with the required understanding to do so, but after the Hand, we've restricted it to a series of loyalty tests. Normally for a mortal cultivator such as yourself, you would first need to find us, submit to the Iron Fist, and then surrender both your cultivation and your life to K'un-Lun."

I frowned sourly "So I would have to die?" Or become a slave?

"No," She chuckles quietly, "you would have to forswear your life beyond K'un-Lun is all, vowing to live here until the end of your days." She looks me up and down. "You have no life to go back to, and are offering your expertise, so I have judged this enough."

"Isn't it the hand's mission to return here?" I ask. "They certainly feel no loyalty to the outside world from what I've read." Well, seen, as it was a TV show, but that would probably get me killed before I could explain. Heh heh heh... yeah, don't wanna do that, thanks.

She nods, her expression deadly serious. "Return here and rule." She states, voice deadly calm. "They originally came to us seeking a way to save their children's lives, but when they died anyway the five perverted our teachings and tried to raise them from the dead. The dead cannot leave K'un-Lun, even when the way is open and The Hand did not yet seek to rule. Now they are banished they seek a way to defeat the Iron Fist and our immortal cultivators that they might continue their dark work."

I frowned. "I thought they were banished for attacking Shao-Lao?" I asked confused.

She shakes her head. "A single grain of rice can tip the scales of destiny, but many forget the pile of other grains that weighted those scales to begin with. The story of the Hand is complex and involves many tragedies and more crimes. Many more, after they left. Much of S'ahra-Sharn is made of Hand lackeys who refused to rejoin the wheel. One cannot be forced onto it and the dead remembered do not fade."

Which makes that big community of combatants effectively immortal here. Great. That probably means a lot of the Order of the Crane Mother are former Chaste. Apparently 'our battle is eternal' wasn't just Stick spouting cultist bullshit, it's very literally forever. Well, concrete, well explained afterlives have been great recruiting pitches for millennia, and this one's pretty Valhalla. The Einherjar were hardly an unpopular option, though the lack of good food and parties would probably be something of a turnoff...

It is personally, at least.

"Over the last thousand years, the Hand have returned several times" Li Hua explains softly, accepting the pass from the returned librarian and handing it to me. "And with time, their goals have changed. Only Gao and Murakami have ever offered to repent, and on separate occasions each. Bakuto refuses to believe he has done wrong, Sowande delights in his malice and Alexandra is too proud and bitter to ever bow as she must. Sowande and Murakami now only wish to become more powerful for the sake of power. Bakuto wants to rise to the top so that he can share our teachings with the world. Gao is a whipped dog and Alexandria... Alexandria would now rule the mortal world from K'un-Lun as her capital; or see both worlds burnt to ash around her."

I nod, thinking that over for a few minutes. She seems to sense my next question though, and so stays, watching me, amused. "So, how do I get to the other floors?"

"To reach the second floor you must prove yourself as a scholar on the first floor." She replies, evenly. "That involves a certain level of decorum and service to the librarians along with proof of intellect. Any inappropriate behavior to your seniors or K'un-lun will hold you further back. To enter the third floor, you must be a cultivator, trained in our way and offer your memories to the hall for study and cataloging. To stay there, you must transcribe the skills stored there for the first or second levels. Since you did not come to us as a cultivator, that will involve apprenticing yourself to one of the four orders of K'un-lun until your masters deem your skill sufficient."

"I could not learn on my own from the first and second floors?"

She looks at me, laughter dancing in her eyes. "Perhaps, but how much time do you have? Cultivation is called a way of life, and not without reason." Shaking her raven black hair, she continues, her implication clear. "The fourth floor is for advanced students at core formation stage. You could journey there before that time, but you would not understand any of what is written. The fifth level is for those seeking to become immortals and join the nobility of K'un-Lun. Centuries often go by before one is worthy to walk the jade pillars and the combat experience gained during that time necessary to survive the shades trials."

"Even for a healing saint?" I ask.

She laughs again. "So full of surprises! Yes, combat even for an immortal healer. But enough questions, you have studying to do, young one."

Bowing to her, we part ways.

As I reach the stacks though, I look back at where she left. The more I learn, both about K'un-Lun and the Hand, the more I feel the parallels between us. I very much doubt K'un-Lun would approve of my plans for the knowledge in their library and if Nicodemus shows up at the Gates of Heaven... God help them all, I will succeed where the Hand failed.

For now though... I need a path into S'ahra Sharn. If my son is here, then either the elders haven't been looking for him, have been hiding him from me in the city, or he's at S'ahra Sharn with the undead Hand. The first should have been solved by my rapidly developing network of friends, so that's out. I don't want to believe the second, because it makes little sense outside of a cheesy Saturday morning cartoon plot so that leaves either the last... or his being in another reality. If he's in S'ahra Sharn, then I need to be strong enough to fight or sneak my way into the undercity and snoop around. Simply asking them, seems... deadly. Maybe the right path IS Disney princess-ing it up and just believing in the good in others, but that's not something I feel comfortable with. If he's not in this reality, then I need to leave K'un-Lun and gather the power to re-open that rift, return past their defense and reach or pass through it.

Pretty much... _**all**_**_ of that_** is going to piss off K'un-Lun. I'm pretty sure. Maybe I can frame it as joining the Chaste? Defeating the Hand on the outside would stop their numbers from growing back here, while the Chaste can continue to do so. The failure of their mission would get some of them to rejoin the wheel rather than suffer in hell, and that could cause a cascade...

I'll burn that bridge when I cross it. For now... _Let's get studying..._

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

March 15th 1987, 8 days later.

"You're doing it wrong, little brother." Tomoi's voice broke my rhythm as I pumped the bellows, fed coal sand into the stream and breathed steadily.

Shaking myself, I focused on him. "Hmm? Rhythm or powder?" I asked, absently.

"No," he replied, shaking his head. "You're trying the breathing exercise for inner awakening, yes? You're doing it wrong. There's a reason you're not supposed to try active meditation until relaxed meditation is instinctual."

I hummed, continuing the physical aspect of my efforts. Over the last week, I'd been spending every extra moment in the library, about 8 hours a day, not including breaks to collect and cook my fish or the nine hours of work at the forge every day. Between the activities I was only getting five hours of sleep, which given all of my activity is not enough. The goal is to have Meditation replace most of my sleep time if at all possible. The books suggested so, but translation was going slowly and I knew I didn't have the full picture.

"Perhaps you could give me a better perspective then... senior?" I almost forgot to add that last part. I'm still not sure about all of the honorifics, and Tomoi is Japanese, not Chinese, despite our shared language and setting.

He huffs. "I would have done this earlier, but I've been waiting for you to be punished." He shakes his head. "You're trying to feel the world around you and shut out internal thought to draw in chi, but that's an advanced technique. In order to get there, you first have to work from within." He pauses a moment to quench the tube we're working on. Setting down his tools, he looks straight at me and begins explaining.

"To achieve first stage enlightenment, you have to connect your soul to your body. Martial artists do this by taking their beatings, meditating on the Dao and focusing their considerable wills on overcoming physical limitations. Sages take a more sedate route, abandoning outside attachments, fasting and dehydrating themselves so that in the end there is only themselves so as to use austerity as their focus. In either case, the basic concept is that the body feeds the mind, the mind shapes the soul, the soul reflects upon the body, reinforcing, feeding and purifying it." He slammed his fist into his chest before making a Buddhist gesture in front of a serene face and then finally lighting up with a faint haze of red flames which reflected off a metallic sheen on his exposed skin. Fire and Metal chi, if I'm remembering the diagrams right.

He looked me up and down. "For you, I would suggest focusing on your exhaustion and loss. Your son is missing, are in unfamiliar surroundings, have been doing a lot and have lost much weight recently. A lot of people fail for years, decades even, because they think that in becoming **more** aware of their bodies while meditating, not less, they're doing something wrong. But enlightenment in this case is realizing the opposite is true. You must become one with yourself before you seek to become one with the world."

That... made sense in hindsight. Nodding I ask. "Any other wisdom for me, sensei?"

He grimaces. "Do not butcher my language. Abusing these continentals tongue is acceptable, mine is not." Then he pulls out a slate from behind the forge. "I do have some suggestions though."

I stopped pumping the bellows and took it from him, clearing off the Anvil and laying the board down to examine it closer. "You want to build a bathhouse?"

"Yes." He replies simply. "As you almost understood earlier, there is 'something involving chi you do not understand going on'. Disciple Mao tried to explain to you that copper is hard to find, but there is a particular reason _why_. We do not mine it here, the mine in the pocket dimension ran out millennia ago and we do not trade with the outside world anymore. The copper we do acquire must be recycled from art and weapons or drawn out of the stone by cultivators skilled in the elements of stone and metal over long periods of time. The Order of the Sleeping Tiger has increased their efforts and even brought in masters from other areas to sit in the mines, but they will not be able to gather enough to add plumbing to the the entire noble district, never mind the transient or martial districts."

They could probably get what they need from aluminum, or Iron in the reservoir beneath us, but explaining that without examples could be... difficult. "But you DO think we'll have enough for a rather large bathhouse." I finished, looking at his designs.

He nodded. "Two of them at least" He agreed, "I'd say more, but I should not push my luck. One well appointed house for the noble district, built to our designs by the finest craftsmen in K'un-Lun, and another larger bathhouse built mostly of wood on the style of Onsen in the middle of the civilian district."

I hummed. "None for Priya's Orders of Crane Mother and Lei Kung's Dark Mountain Sect?"

"The inner and outer defenses pride themselves on their austerity" he countered shaking his head. "They also prefer the name 'Chaste', not Dark Mountain, or Black Turtle. You could ask, but I think they'll take it as an insult. Individual disciples will visit the civilian bathhouse and the Elders the Cultivators bathhouse, but in secret, likely as not. The Thunderer prefers to bathe and cultivate in the lake beneath the second set of falls. He says it's bracing, I just think he's a masochist."

The pair of us settled into an easy comradery as we continued to talk and draw until the shift was over three hours later. I redid his piping network and after he explained the use of chi to heat, chill, clean and foul(mineralize) the water, we went about redesigning the system of baths, pools and tanks as well. Some of our more ingenious designs required too much piping to actually work, but we ended up settling on something both the smith and I liked enough to present to Li Hua.

The Tiger's Daughter was disappointed, a point she made clear with her cold and menacing aura, but she understood the reason for the change, and quickly warmed to the idea of bathing in a more social setting. After talking with the leader of civilian operations, we ended up redesigning it again so that there were three smaller, but identical partitions to the bathing houses. Male, Female and Co-ed. There was also discussion about how I intended to pump the water TO the bathhouses in the first place, and I quickly pulled out my maps of the city and how we could use the waterfall and a bit of lumber to create slides that would funnel the water to each location easily. Then the conversation moved onto towels, soaps and medicinal baths, something normally done in private residences using a cultivators own resources.

I struggled to keep mental notes during _THAT_ conversation. There was really just too much to absorb. Sacred herbs, spirit and demon beasts, auspicious times, complex alchemical principles; Tiger's Beautiful Daughter got so deep into it, even Tomoi quickly became lost and just nodded along like a bobble-head, occasionally speaking up when he recognized this or that principle. The Elder caught on though, and it became less of a discussion and more of a lesson after the first hour, during which we were... encouraged to keep notes. Li Hua frowned when mine were in English, but after a quick perusal to ensure I was at least transcribing her words properly, she let it go.

I left with enough research done to account for easily a week at the library, but little context for it all and a desperate wish to have my computer powered up and running once again.

Soon, my precious... soon.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

April 18th, 1987

Following Tomoi's advice had been harder than I'd expected, but when I had come too after my enlightenment it was to find several of my neighbors laying trays of food before me, as offerings to my genius and prayers for my luck to rub off on them. I stopped one of them, a girl named Visha, and asked why.

"Cultivation, as a method of purifying the soul, is one of the few ways to ensure a good life upon reincarnation" she told me blushing. "For those who have committed sins against the world or lived poorly, even a poor human existence isn't guaranteed. But a cultivator cleanses themselves multiple times as they gather power, which goes double for us as residents of Heaven where soul and body are literally one in the same. As a living cultivator, taking the first step of enlightenment as quickly as the dead can only be the favor of the Dao, and so emulating you will increase our own chances. For this we offer gratitude."

I thanked her for the food and let everybody pass by. There was quite a lot here, and I wasn't sure I could eat it all before it spoiled. I was feeling fantastic though. Energy flowed through my body, radiating from indefinable point in my chest. It wasn't my heart, but it was… nearby? And the power pulsed softly with every breath, rising as I breathed in, and falling as I breathed out. Small spikes hit with every beat of my heart and as my mind explored the sensations a rising wave seemed to follow my thoughts. At the same time however, the energy seemed to be draining into my stomach and lower abdomen, probably my intestines, substituting power for the lack of food.

Aaaaaand that seemed as good a place to start as any.

Digging in, I took note of how the energy drain seemed to spike as the first mouthful hit my stomach, but moments later the tide of power coming from my chest began to increase. The drain climbed faster than the return for a while, but as I packed more and more away, the balance rapidly changed, my soul outputting more than my gut was pulling from me to aid digestion and allowing me to pack away far more than I had any right to eat without getting bloated. From there the chi overflowed my torso and rushed out through my blood, seeming to light up the pathways in my minds eye. Raising my arm, I tracked the feeling, but couldn't see any visible difference.

I felt like a god, but visually I wasn't even generating as much chi as the rather lackluster MCU version of Iron Fist. It was disappointing, but perhaps to be expected. Also good for keeping me from getting a swollen head.

Stretching and groaning after a good meal, I felt the soreness in my limbs fading as chi faded into them, vanishing just like it had in my stomach before I started eating.

Thinking about it, all of this made sense. Chi was alternately described as spiritual power, physical power and life force. When you have it, or perhaps simply when you have learned how to feel it, it would naturally follow and enhance your biological processes. It explained all sorts of things like the claims of subsisting for months or years purely on the power of the universe, or the Iron Body techniques that allow advanced martial artists to punch through stone without breaking their skin or bones. Unnatural long life and even immortality.

But would I need to learn how to use it deliberately first? Or would simply having my 'enlightenment' suffice? Briefly I try to move the energy around, but other than increasing the wellspring of chi as my focus ratchets up, nothing seems to happen. Mind forms the soul, Souls reinforces the body. Right. Ok. In most of the manga I know, chi is 90 or so percent physical reinforcement. I'll probably need another enlightenment moment to get to the controlling things part. Think, think...

Tomoi. Or maybe Li Hua. I can't really get a read on Yu-Ti and between the Thunderer and Priya I'm almost certain to get conscripted. Something I'd rather avoid.

Getting up, I use the wet towel method of washing myself and leave my apartment for the work site. We're in the end stages of putting the first bathhouse together and I need to test the sluice and pumps under actual working conditions. It's all disturbingly exciting, given what I used to work on.

Immediately though, I come across a problem. My steps push me half again as far as they used to and I crash into the wall outside my door. There's tittering down the hall, but nobody comes out or makes comments about it. Ah, the double edged sword of Asian Politeness. On one hand, it's much less embarrassing to have people collectively ignore your gaffs, but it's also rather... unhelpful.

Gritting my teeth, I push myself back to a standing position and move again. Chi sinks into my muscles, vanishing as it supports my movements, even as my faster heart rate and breathing causes the source to spike and crest higher. I'm adaptable though, and by the end of the hallway, I've gotten a handle on how to walk normally again. It makes me feel oddly light, as though I'm walking in a pool only without the lateral resistance water provides. Buoyant. Forcing a deliberate laxness gets me out of the building, and I grin.

Time to test myself.

Crouching down, I spring forward into a sprint. Luckily, I don't immediately fall flat on my face and plow the ground with my nose. It's a close thing though, and I stumble several times before settling into a deer-like loping trot. I've seen this sort of thing in pro runners, but it's _**never**_ been easy for me. Well, it is now. Fuck, doing it is just making me feel MORE jacked, spiking my chi higher. Chi begins to fade into my lungs as I push on, soothing the burning winded feeling running normally slays me with and I watch fascinated as the flows in my body shift to accommodate. Breathing, heart rate, food and thought provide power; digestion, ragged breath, strenuous movement and heightened thought drain power. I almost _want_ to get injured to see how that would affect things in my new awareness now.

That thought gives me pause. What. The. Fuck. Why the hell did I just think that? Does the power affect my mind? Or is it simply the comic geekiness of Having Power that's making me think stupid ass shit? No matter what power I have now, or gain in the future, damage is to be avoided whenever something more important isn't on the line. And there are few things more important than your health. Family for example.

Stumbling to a stop, I rest with my hands on my knees and look around. I've become rather familiar with the layout of the immortal city, over the last several months, and I'm not far from the site of the civilian bathhouse project. It's going to be finished before the Cultivators bathhouse only because slapping lumber together is easier than artistically forming stone and tile. The piping system is just about done for both, it just needs stress testing, as I remembered earlier. We've had a productive month.

Straightening up again, I move to a more sedate jogging pace. The drain on my energy is much less this way, and by the time I reach the construction site, I'm feeling better than I have since... pretty much the moment I got here. Better than I have for the entire year before that too, not to put too fine a point on it. Coming home to find your daughters murdered and your son next to be drowned in the bath does that do you.

Forcing away dark thoughts, I stop by Tomoi.

"You've awoken." He says without preamble.

I snort. "Obviously, unless I'm really good at sleepwalking." I tell him with a grin.

He scowls at me. "Don't be thick, gaijin. Your chi is awakened. You achieved your first enlightenment faster than I expected."

"My neighbors said about the same," I acknowledged. "Maybe it's early, but I'm having trouble making it move how I want it. Willing to offer me any pointers?"

"Meditate more." He replied flatly. "Chi is like a muscle. It starts out as weak and uncoordinated as a baby. The amount you have and your control over it will grow with time and effort. The more important question now is which Dao you intend to follow?"

"Your Martial, or spiritual path." He explained when I looked at him questioningly. "There is only one true Dao, but a thousand ways to arrive there. Lesser truths which guide our path as we come to understand the truth of the universe. One part of that is your method of cultivation. I can only give you the vaguest advice about the paths from North and South America, Europe or Africa, but there are a few manuscripts for each in the second floor."

"I haven't gotten to the second floor yet." I tell him with a grimace. He nods. After a moment, I push. "What can you tell me?"

"Europeans, at least the southern sort, confuse cultivation with worship of the lightforce. But rather than using either properly, they dedicate themselves to an ideal and meditate constantly on it. From what the few European cultivators to reach K'un-Lun have written, they tend to build large cathedrals for their art. You may even know more than I do. You're from there, aren't you?"

I shake my head. "I worked there briefly in the Navy, but I lived in America." From the sound of it though, he's saying saints and their miracles are real. Though, how they could be superheroes and the church still decayed into secularism, I've no idea.

He grunts. "The African's are beast cultivators. Their land is full of demon beasts, and most of their methods involve rather detailed uses of the skin, meat and bones of demon beasts as the base for their growth and techniques. The Americans do similar, but with human sacrifice instead. The last one to reach the Immortal City said that his people sacrificed a thousand beating hearts each year to infuse chi into their crops, ensuring a bountiful harvest."

Aztechs and Mayans. Bloody wonderful.

"The most developed methods however come from Asia. My people, as I said, focus on our spirits. Meditation, adventures, fights and study hone our souls like metal in a forge. I could teach you personally if you were interested. Of the three great traditions we have the highest energy generation rate."

I clap my hand onto his shoulder and shook him slightly. "I think I'd like that. But if you could tell me about the others?"

He nods, smiling. "Continue to come by the forge when this project is done, and I'll start your training. We don't really have much to do normally." Turning away, he shouts orders to several people, before returning to me. "The Chinese way is more focused on the body than the spirit. Using medicines, they focus on purifying their bodies and entering altered states of mind. This allows them a deeper link between their soul and body. In this state, they are able to sense the pathways through which chi flows, and focus on storing power for later use. These pathways are called meridians and the storage areas, Dan-Tien. There are three Dan-Tien," He touches his brow, heart and stomach. "Upper middle and Lower. Most of them form their power center just below their stomach, as it allows them the most balanced approach to using their power. Storing their power in the heart makes for powerful warriors, while storing it in the brain makes for powerful sages, though neither are much good at the others arts."

"And the last group are the Buddhists of Nepal, right?" I ask, thinking of the temples that are so popular in any movie or book about them.

Tomoi however gives me a look of consternation. "No. Well, some of them, every now and then. No, the third path is the Mahabharata Hindu. Their Brahmanda is... difficult to describe. I've lived with some of them for half of a century and I still don't understand them, but they're _powerful_. Mechanically, where the Chinese separate their power into three dantien of which they take **one**, the Hindu path separate their power into seven chakra based on major nerve branches and create power centers in **all of them**. They don't use Chinese Meridians, preferring instead to concentrate on the flow of power between chakras, each of them blocked by certain emotional states and empowered by others. You're not considered a proper cultivator in their tradition until you've opened up all seven and can channel the power of the world through you from crown to tailbone without blockages."

This was something I sort of knew about. It was all over the hippie community and had thoroughly infected the 60's and any pop-culture that referenced the era. Given what I'd been learning lately, there was probably a lot that was wrong about what I knew, but the part about the nerve branches was interesting.

"Has anyone ever tried to use all multiple traditions in tandem?" I asked.

He snorted. "Some have, yes. They're legends in K'un-Lun, either for their rapid rise and journey across the Bridge of Destiny, or for destroying their souls such that even the Gate of Heaven doesn't bring them back to us. Its generally considered the path of the foolish or the desperate. Asians may seem like hidebound and silly traditionalists to your people, but there's usually a good reason for it."

I looked at him sidelong. "Who are you, and what have you done with my friend? You know, the one who pushes his seniors to baldness trying to modernize K'un-Lun? Who was desperately happy when I managed to get the elders to consider it for the sake of hot baths?"

He smirks at me. "I'm one of the fools. I've found the Chinese Meridians and elements to be useful to the Shinto spiritual path, but I'm not big on the idea of power centers. If you're studying in the library though, most of the material you'll find are based on the Chinese tradition. It's strong and stable, but I'm rather biased to the legendary Nippon spirit."

I chuckle. "You would be. As I understand it, Korea, northern China, southern China and Japan have _**hated**_ each other for a thousand years."

"Thousands," he corrected. "But enough chatter. There's not much I can teach you here."

"To work?" I ask him.

"To work," he agreed, and the pair of us got to it. There were a few problems with me applying too much force, and damaging things, but thankfully, there weren't a lot of things I needed to use my strength for, my mind being more important.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

April 24th 1987

The Civilian bathhouse was finished three days later to great fanfare, and the Nobles Bathhouse open in a week. They were operational a day earlier than the civilian opening, but the decorative finish and luxuries needed time to be perfected and installed.

I however, was no longer involved. The piping had been completed and demonstrated to work to the Orders and that was enough. Li Hua herself set the chi runes on the heated water tanks, from the steam room to the mineralized hot-springs. She also gave me a crucial lesson about chi use there.

"Fire element chi is not the process of life energy becoming flame, but rather chi imitating the properties of fire." She explained as a glowing gold orange finger traced ink and chi onto the surface of the copper drum. "This in particular is why the mystic elements are so much more useful than their natural counterparts. There is of course the nature of fire that heats and warms, but your chi also carries with it the _meaning of fire_. Is it destruction? Purification? Protection? Passion? Your body burning off a disease? The satisfaction of a good meal or drink? Lust? The glow afterwards? The more you learn about heat, the further it informs your Dao of Fire and the more you can do with it."

"Then, if I wanted to conceal myself" I asked, hesitantly, deciding against my better judgement to trust her "I should meditate on the meaning of shadows and darkness?"

She hummed for a moment. "You could, but shadows are deeply linked to Yin. You could achieve the same thing by meditating on light, which is favored closely by Yang and use it to form illusions so that people see something else." She looked over at me, catching my eyes despite my not looking directly at her moments before. "Why do you feel the need to hide here?"

I grimace, caught out. But then, I expected this when broaching the question. "As I told the others, I want to find my son. If he followed me through the tear in reality, then it's possible he's found his way to the valley's other city. As I understand it, one does not simply walk into S'ahra Sharn."

She nods, pensive. "Why not simply ask the Thunderer to train you?" She wonders aloud. "The Dark Lord of the North is always looking for mortal born recruits to join the chaste."

I snort. "Because I am a scholar, not a warrior. And an old one at that. Training to become a martial artist of any real caliber takes a decade at least. And even that would not guarantee I could get in and out alive unless I found myself to be an undiscovered genius. Besides which, If my son is there, I'm not going to leave him there for a decade just so I can train up, these past months have been bad enough. Going there without training may be possible, sure, but getting back out would be straight up impossible in that case, unless I join the organization your friends use as a threat for the uncooperative."

She smiles pityingly at me. "The Yu-Ti is a man of great compassion. If you asked, he may storm the gates himself and retrieve your son."

"IF Nicodemus is there." I counter. "IF no one has risen within the undercity who can challenge him. IF K'un-Lun is willing to risk stomping into such an ant hill. IF... if I'm willing to pay whatever price Yu-Ti decides on for this favor." I counter. "He'd have to be a saint to do it for free."

This made the White Tiger laugh, but she would not explain what it was she found so funny before the inspection was over.

And so, I took Tomoi and Li Hua's advice.

I mediated.

And as I did, I slowly learned more about my chi. Long hours were spent studying it's flows and trying to pinpoint just where in my chest the wellspring of power was coming from. Replacing sleep with meditation ate up a prodigious amount of power, as it turned out, but after five days I figured out how to move my chi deliberately through my body. It was a slow process, and only increased my strength fractionally, but this was just the beginning... and there was so much more to come.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

May 4th 1987

I have hit the jackpot.

Besides my son, one of the biggest things I've been missing since arriving in K'un-Lun has been my computer. I managed to retrieve the laptop from the hill where it had spilled when I met Iron Fist practically the next day, but alas and alack, the charge ran out quickly without anything to plug the poor device into.

Now I had a solution!

Chi.

Asian myths are full of objects enchanted to do completely and utterly ridiculous things because of Chi. Swords that expanded to the size of a surfboard and allowed their users to fly on them. Books that burnt their pages to banish ghosts. Hair ribbons that would wrap around their maiden's injuries and heal them. A painters brush that could erase mountains. Coins that could become a second moon in the sky and affect the tides simply so that the hero could have a light by which to continue battling the tyrant.

What I was doing was nowhere near that impressive or sophisticated. Even so, after figuring out how to move my chi as I wanted it, I started making attempts to move it outside my body. The faint ember of faerie fire I generated had been unable to do anything of use, save exhaust me utterly. But trying it on the battery of my laptop caused enough of a surge to turn on the fan in my laptop and set it shrieking!

Abused by it's sudden start after months of silence, I cradled the device as though it were a precious child.

I did _not_ cry.

But still... I am **back!**

The first thing I did after making certain I had a full charge, was pull up the Rosetta Stone Translation Software I'd installed on my computer in preparation for moving to Singapore. Connecting my phone to my computer and allowing it to power up from the cord I tested the program by having it scan some of my own writing from the last several months. It took the computer a few moments to recognize what it was seeing, but shortly, pixelated lines started drawing themselves over the image fed into it, reading brush strokes and comparing them to it's database of characters.

Then it was done.

On my screen was the full text I had painted alongside an English translation and Pinyin pronunciation format. I've apparently got a number of grammatical errors I need to work on, but that's OK, I'm the boorish foreigner after all. Glancing longingly at the list of games loaded onto my hard drive, I consider just wasting the day away and playing them again, but resist. Games can wait until I've confirmed Nick isn't in S'ahra Sharn. Checking the charge, at 97%, I close the computer and replace it in my backpack before heading to the library. I spend the rest of the day scanning books into text files on my laptop and labeling them by author name and date. It's not quite as good as arranging them by subject, but it's more than they have already.

By the end of the day I'd scanned, labeled and re-shelved nearly two hundred books.

Just ten or twenty thousand left to go.

Now, my English reading speed is significantly higher than my Mandarin, but even so, I'm well aware that I'm simply not going to have time to go through the entire first floor in the time I plan to stay here. By talking to the people around heaven, I'd found out that the portal to earth had closed about 2 years ago, so the next one would be some time in autumn of 2000 or 2001. That meant I'd need to either increase my reading and comprehension speed (a lot) or find a way to filter through all of the dross.

Fortunately there is a way.

Plagiarism is enough of a problem in academia that there's good money in inventing some truly clever algorithms to track that shit down, even when it's paragraphs or lines rearranged to form a new paper. Scientific journals are not only not an exception to this, they take it to a whole new level. The entire community is paranoid out of their gourds that someone will steal their ideas that "publish or die" is something of a mantra and paywalls are thick as flies on a carcass, but even so plagiarism abounds and those walls are under funded. So... even I, a simple tech at a nuclear plant, am familiar with the use of spotting programs.

Programs to which I begin feeding the new books.

Now, one may ask "yeah, but how is that even useful here?" and that might be a valid question. After all, the program doesn't have a database for old Chinese documents! Easy. Make the database self referential so that it forms its own meta. All of the repeating passages are highlighted and linked for easy reference, making research across multiple books a breeze and cutting out the need to read things over and over again.

Looking at the timer, the program claims it's going to take another four hours to get through what I've fed it already, so I settle down to get some sleep. Or deep meditation as it were. It works almost as well as sleep and I still need to empower my laptop. I don't know exactly how long the charge will last, but I do know running the processors hot takes a lot of extra power. And so... I meditate on my chi, allowing it to flow out of me and into my computer as I generate it.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

May 29th 1987

Over the next several weeks, I continue to scan more and more books into text files in my library. The repeating passages, and how often they repeat is proving to be useful as is the surrounding context. I've already tripled my recovery speed and have begun to feel the power outside my body. The recovery speed of my chi also has the knock-on-effect of making physical exercise not merely tolerable, but downright _fun_. It's a situation I can't help but wonder at. Is it becoming fun because it no longer sucks so much to push my body beyond reason? Or is the chi literally altering my mood so that exercising is fun? From recently recovered memories of Marvels Agent Carter TV show, Chi has a profound effect on chemistry, and endorphins released by exercise to stop you from hating yourself are definitely chemistry. Further, chi is your soul acting upon your body, and by cultivating you easily fall into a loop of reaching ever higher.

That this could be mystically fucking with me is a scary thought.

There's not much to be done about it though. Tomoi tells me that, once I reach second stage enlightenment, becoming one with the world, I can begin to mess with elements, a core feature to my plans to sneak into S'ahra Sharn. I'm so close I can almost _taste_ it... and because of that I cannot give up. No matter how much the idea scares me.

There are pretty good fringe benefits at least. Exercising means that my muscles, breathing and circulatory systems are gaining strength, and in doing so, require less of my chi to support the silly things I now want to do with it. Like improving my coordination through gymnastics and pushing myself past the point I'd normally collapse and start vomiting up my organs as I curse whatever stupidity made me think exercise was a good idea. Because my body is improving, it also feeds more energy to my brain before chi even gets involved, increasing the speed and clarity of my thoughts and memories. I'm already smart, but I wouldn't be surprised if this bumped me up 10 IQ points.

This increased understanding and physique, is the source of my increased chi regeneration and reduced chi consumption. That higher level of chi in my body and greater understanding parleys into better control over the energy itself.

Better still, learning better how to move my chi around my body (beyond powering up my laptop) means I can start taking advantage of the effects and techniques moving chi around ones body offers. This is the basis for most wushu in your typical cheesy kung fu movie. The iron fist (not the title, but the technique where you punch through wooden posts and stones) involves little more than pushing your chi into the body part you wish to strike with, reinforcing it so that it can withstand the forces involved in punching stone without worrying about shattering your bones and pulping the flesh in between. That allows you to push your muscles harder and faster even without chi boosting your muscles and nerves, and further still with it. Iron body is the same, as it's the aforementioned effect allowing you to take those enhanced blows.

What the Iron Fist does instinctively is a step above that, sending large amounts of chi into your blows and allowing it to ripple outward enhancing the meaning of the punch so that the force is multiplied multiple times over and spreads well beyond what physics says it should. Classic cartoon punching. Iron cloth is the same concept channeled through iron body training such that it infuses your clothing, or forms a superman aura around you making the idea of your skin and clothing's protection like a thing unto iron, instead of simple flesh and fiber. This doesn't stop it from flowing and flapping in the breeze as you move faster than humanly possible either as it's more conceptual than physics oriented.

Honestly I'm still getting my head around the physics bending portions of this. For a quick short hand though, I've _begun training _in the same league as street fighter and Tekken.

Finally, during this stage, there is Qinggong or light body technique. This is how martial artists jump ridiculous heights, stay in the air from kicking and hitting their opponents and sail around like kites rather than falling like sensible physics obeying martial artists. The whys hows and wherefores are still confusing me, but it's something to do with focusing on the light and bubbly feeling the first enlightenment gives you and then training to do the Kung Fu wall jumps normally. I wish I could describe it more eloquently, but as I'm still avoiding the orders of Crane Mother and Chaste, I'm not actually being trained in the martial arts themselves which would come with all of the moves and associated philosophies.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

June 6th 1987

Tomoi grunts at me in irritation as I walk into his shop grinning broadly. "You're not a genius." He tells me gruffly.

"But I am faster than most." I counter. He snorts as I begin helping with the bellows. Then he snickers as I pull in a bit of fire chi and hiss at the stinging sensation of it.

"Achieving second enlightenment is baby steps." He says as he pulls out the bar of metal he's working on and starts hammering it again. He's making a hinge, I think. "Now you need to start thinking about your path. Chi elements are chi behaving as..."

"though it were that element, not actually becoming the element itself. To achieve it one must meditate in an area where the element is present naturally and align your internal energies in step with the gained understanding." I recite. "Li Hua told me."

He snorts. "Did she also tell you where the best places to meditate would be?"

I open my mouth, and then close it. Tomoi smirks, but refusing to let him win I push forward anyway. "She told me that my goal of sneaking into S'ahra Sharn would be better accomplished through understanding light than darkness, as I was male and also not feminine."

"I might have to argue with her then," Tomoi replies, a grin of his own twitching across his face "you whine enough for two women." I gave him the middle finger and he laughed. "She is correct. You were whining about how you think chi is influencing your mind earlier. If you alter your balance of Yin and Yang it really will influence your mind. I would recommend meditating on a mountain top. The bright airy surroundings are good for Yang and meditating in the light of the dawn and noonday suns will help you understand light most easily. The cold and water of the snow should provide enough Yin to keep you largely balanced and the emptiness of the peak should shut out the world enough for you to focus only on your task. Night will switch the chi balance though, so be careful of that."

I nod slowly, "Why is that exactly? In the west, light and dark are more associated with the nature of a people rather than gender."

"It's because of your ancestors messing around with the light force and dark force dimensions as opposed to proper understanding of chi." He replied, trading his hammer for a pair of needle-nosed-pliers and a rod he pulled out of a oil well. "Rather than getting an understanding of the soul, they jumped ahead to thinking of things in terms of cosmic forces. They're similar enough to cause confusion in lesser minds, but fundamentally different when you get down the the heart of it."

He fired the metal again, and began twisting the tines of metal coming off the plate into hooks. "Yang chi is weightless, it comes from the soles if you feet and travels up your back, reaching for heaven. It makes you stand straight even under enormous strain and unburdens even the most troubled mind. It is light, fire, stone and steel. Seeking and revealing, Yang will push you to reach higher even as it judges you harshly and refuses to bend. Strength and deep thought flow from the balance of Yang chi in your body, whether you sense it or not."

He inserts the oiled rod into the curled bits of metal and begins hammering them into an even shape. "Yin chi by contrast is heavy, coming from all places and no place, weighing you down and flowing across your face and chest in its path from heaven to earth. It will bow your head even as it helps you hide or yield to greater forces around you. Yin is darkness, water, wind and life. Protective and enveloping it will conceal anything from children and valuables, to monsters and poison. Yin will devour you if you are not careful, but it also makes you accepting and cooperative. Adaptability and selectiveness flow from the balance of Yin chi with or without training."

Putting the hinge and it's bolt back in the fore for a moment, he pulls them back out and uses a second set of pliers to remove the bolt. Plunging the hinge into the water, he then puts it back in the forge to heat up. Tempering. "Yin and Yang are opposite forces, but they are not in fact opposing. They are synergistic, harmonic, and everybody has a strong measure of both. Usually somewhere around 60/40. Having your balance go too far to one side or being the opposite of normal leads to all sorts of oddities. Weak men, monsters, tyrants, boy love and sissies. Harridans, ice queens, devouring mothers, tomboys and lesbians."

That's... pretty big. Bringing this to the west with hard proof could potentially rewrite the entire DSM5. "If you change your balance, could you correct these issues?" I ask, carefully.

"In some cases." He replied, unconcerned. "Some require a change of the blood else they return later, but not most. The issue generally is that some of these states are sought out for a specific Dao." He puts the hinge back in the water and holds it there, sizzling and steaming. "They are limiting paths in my opinion, but they do have their own immortals."

That made sense I suppose, but I would probably shoot for more 70/30. No offense, but Asian men are fairly effeminate by the western view of such things. I'll have to figure out where I am right now first.

As it was nearing night however, I simply took note of his advice and revelations and continued to aid him until he closed up his corner of the forge. I was planning how to rearrange my schedule to take advantage of this and not cut back on my in house research when Tomoi reached out to me.

"Do you have the evening free?" he asked, his manner too casual.

"I have some planning to do, but I have a moment free," I offered, confused "what do you need?"

Looking around the forge for a moment, he pulled me outside and then explained. "Brother Kuo runs a distillery. Plums, honey, kumquat, lotus root, rice. He hides cashes of drink all over town, trading small jugs of wine or liquor for favors. But... there is a rumor that he hides a special stock for the nobles that is made from the divine peach and infused with chi. If you help me find it, not only can we get drunk, it will greatly speed up our cultivation."

A grin slowly spreads across my face. "You're asking me because I intend to study stealth." Tomoi nods and I grin wider. Normally I'd ask for something in return, but the mans' been dead helpful already and simply finding this hidden stash will get me closer to my goal of finding my son. I can afford not to be a douche. "I'll do what I can." I tell him. "Though it may take some time, if I find it at all."

He grins at me. "Come then, let's get some of your ghost fish and I'll introduce you when I hand him these hinges. I hear the plum wine in the bell tower has gotten quite potent and enlightenment is sufficient cause for celebration."

I didn't learn much more that night, but the way my head throbbed in the morning, it must have been wild.


	2. Canoe without a paddle

A number of people have told me in PM's over the last few years I should put up a I've finally gotten around to it. I'll be putting up notices with new chapters from my various stories, but for future reference, it is also now in my signature. To anyone willing to throw me some quarters, thank you for your generosity. Solusandra is creating Books and Fanfiction | I'll begin reposting everything on shortly. With no furthur ado, on with the story.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

July 4th 1987

Meditating on mountain tops is not all it's cracked up to be. The stone will leach heat out of your ass for hours (cheat, bring a blanket or pillow) any wind cuts like a knife (thank god I have my own clothes to layer) you more or less **have** to learn Qinggong (magical Chinese parkour) to get to them in any timely fashion and your fellow cultivators will often act as vortexes of air when they get deep into meditation. You see, drawing on the chi around you rather than relying on the strength of your own soul has secondary effects on the environment. Elemental chi may not _**BE**_ that element, but it certainly acts like it, and the same goes for ambient chi taken from the world. One thing leads to another and you get tornados around all of the different cultivators combining and interfering with each other leading to some truly nasty weather conditions. Particularly at this altitude.

That being said, the vista's are beautiful. The red sun like burnished copper rising and disappearing behind the mountains. Seas of boiling clouds painted a fluffy cotton white rimmed with molten gold, soft orange and occasional flashes of purple. Largely untouched jade and emerald valleys revealed and hidden like a strip tease as they (the clouds) fade in and out almost at random. A perfect view of the stars you simply don't understand if you've lived all of your life in cities, or even towns. That would be particularly breathtaking if I didn't know what was out there in this particular universe.

After the first couple of days coming up here, I'd worked out a schedule.

After sunset, I'd be in the library, working on scanning and labeling the books on the first floor. The librarians had caught on quick and offered to help. After a bit of discussion I encouraged them to do so, figuring it could only help me find things I was interested in all of the dross and repeats. I was labeling things in both Chinese and English, and none of them knew English, so it wasn't as though I was going to miss anything. Or scan repeats unless they removed MY tags. That was most of the discussion beyond my labeling system actually, me convincing them not to replace my tags, or at least to copy my markings when they did so. This would go on until an hour before dawn, at which point one of the librarians would stop me.

At that point, I would go to the baths and clean up. This one girl, Ji-yun has set up a laundry service. Trade her my latest load of clothing for a fish every week because those are still a popular currency and then collect three more for **my** meals. Community food has improved somewhat, as I've become slightly more important to K'un-Lun, at least more so than the mass peasant souls. Three bowls of rice a day and randomly a bit of fruit or tuber. Taking that all at once initially caused a stir, but a bit of sweet talking, a few bribes, and affidavits I was going to spend my entire day cultivating on a mountain top rather than scamming food centers helped. A lot.

Finally, I would head for a peak and cultivate. From sunrise to sunset, trying to understand the nature of light and shadow.

The first week was shit. As I noted earlier, trying to climb mountains is no fun. Getting rope for climbing tools was easy the first time, but when rando Cultivator 'Ming' removes it shortly after you leave every day, fuck you, you quickly stop getting rope. Iron climbing picks aren't something you can just come by here either, so it's fashioning wooden one and hoping they don't break. Then, the climb takes fucking forever and you miss sunrise. On top of that, climbing at night sucks even in the middle of summer, even using chi to warm yourself so that frostbite can't take you. Simply? The difficulty of learning Qinggong, an exercise of months or years I'm told, is simply more convenient.

Falling helped with that, truth be told. And I fell a _**LOT**_ in that first week. You learn Iron Body and Light Body _fast_ when it's that or massive chi sucking bruises, fractures and the potential for death with every tumble.

The rewards though... It's nothing less than freedom. It's not flight, but attuning your chi to that feeling of weightlessness during a fall or apex of a jump until your soul begins to mimic it in reality. After a month of effort I can silver age superman it well enough it hardly matters that I'm not really flying. By two points of view, I have a _**LOT**_ of incentive to learn.

Geeking out aside, I've discovered my yin-yang balance to be about 33-66 Yin to Yang. Mechanically, that means I have twice the affinity and mana capacity for anything Yang related compared to Yin. Add on that I am physically and psychologically male, if we were working by game system point values it would be 1:6. It's not that I cannot DO Yin based techniques or am barred from learning them, but it'll be six times harder for me to gather Yin chi and learn or use Yin techniques than equivalent Yang methods. I could alter my balance, but the psychological and possibly physical ramifications of that put me off the attempt. What's already been happening is unsettling enough.

I still gather and study Yin chi, no mistake, that's part of maintaining the balance. The extra difficulty though make me glad wind, water, cold and darkness are all yin aligned. Plus, needing to keep a closer eye on Yin than Yang (which just to come easily to me) I think is helping my personal study.

See, what I'm trying to do is use light as a medium for concealment. Unfortunately, concealment, however you go about doing it, is a Yin natured effort. So far, I've gotten a sort of adaptive camouflage. It started with the ability to glow like a plasma ball. It's not a battle aura or the Iron Fists molten inner glow I simply don't have the raw power to pull off either, but rather as though my skin was literally radiant. That took about a week to achieve, for which Tomoi mocked me mercilessly, saying I'd become my own childhood nightlight. It's completely useless for stealth, but it was a start.

From there, I tried to get the light to fold around me, sort of like Susan Storm and her force-fields, but that drained my Yin Chi like a hole in the titanic. I wasted nearly a week on it before giving up, and turning my brain to other things, like trying to project colors rather than a simple radiance. I discovered... that either that wasn't possible, or it was an advanced technique I wasn't ready for.

Inspiration struck on the fourth week. I'd been taking my laptop up to the mountains with me for technical research or whenever I couldn't take it anymore and the boredom of meditating and frustration of failed experiments got to me. Looking through my entertainment library brought me to The Invisible Man. His problem was that light literally passed through him and wouldn't stop. That proved to be, while still frustrating, much easier to do. The light penetrating me also increased my ability to pick up Yang-chi from sunlight much much easier. So much so, that I had to bleed off Yang Chi almost constantly to keep my balance. Becoming more masculine could be good on a number of fronts... but bonus traits Harsh, Judgemental and Tyrant aren't traits I want to cultivate either, even if quickly acquiring rippling Arnold Schwarzenegger muscles and a high perception score would be cool. In the end I developed the ability to shine like a spotlight from any part of my body. Good for a distraction and quick getaway, blind your opponent and sucker punch them or skedaddle.

Right now though, I can become roughly 25% transparent. Light, or it's lack, goes through me enough that I look as though I'm a chameleon. Great for concealment, if only it didn't require constant focus to pull off. The chi drain of the technique is about half again as much as my current regeneration rate though. I can keep it up by meditating on environmental chi, but I can't do that while moving.

This leaves me four paths.

1) I learn active meditation, allowing me to drain power from my environment while doing any/everything else. Pros: cultivation no longer interferes with doing stuff. Cons: being a drain on the environmental chi is probably bad for stealth.  
2) I gain a much deeper understanding of the technique to reduce its power consumption. Pros: getting there will greatly improve my control. Cons: it'll take some time and I'm getting really impatient of late.  
3) I train with Tomoi to gain a better understanding of the Nippon Spirit technique. Pros: Higher, possibly **_MUCH_** higher chi regeneration. Probably enough to cover the technique Cons: To anyone who specializes in sensing chi, I'll be a beacon.  
4) I train in the Chinese path where I sink power into Meridians and Dantien for later use. Pros: I get a mana pool to store and draw from. Cons: the "spiritual weight" effect you see in anime and manga is actually a thing in the Chinese path.

Apparently the spiritual power bleeding off others presses itself into your body and the delicate structures of saturated chi. This is awesome for rapid cultivation, but comes with the risk of an angry demi god causing you to explode. Evil Overlord List, point 34, no matter how tempting the idea of ultimate power, I shall never consume an energy field larger than my own head... Most of them don't try to do that to you though, preferring to abuse the effect as a disciplinary or bullying tactic. Try to cultivate when they do that, and they're likely to take your head off while you're distracted.

Or... well, I suppose there are six paths. 5) I learn an entirely different technique, Pros; unknown, Cons: who even knows how long that will take or 6) I suck it up and ask Yu-Ti to search the valley for my son. Pros: I'll know more or less immediately. Cons: Whatever Yu-Ti wants in exchange I'll have no right to refuse. Not that I do as is, but right now, he's got no reason to ask anything of me.

I hate exclusive choices. They all suck in just about every case. A good middle ground between two or three of them always seems to fit better.

Shaking my head, I decided to quit the mountain early and visit Tomoi.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Moving through the streets of K'un-Lun was fun. The physical effort got my blood pumping and breathing up, removing the 50% over deficit I'd been dealing with not in meditation but speed and heavy breathing isn't exactly good for discreetly searching urban areas. People saw me as I ran and jumped among them, but so many of them startled out of my way, apologizing for not having seen me that it was hard to hold my new technique against the urge to laugh. My mirth over the experience actually aided me in my understanding of the light body technique, allowing my passage to be that much more effortless. The understanding came with a slight surge of power from my soul cycle reducing the drain on my ability from 50% over to 45% over when my heart calmed and things in my spirit settled again.

Entering the forge area I continued to get odd looks from the various people I passed and was told several times that what I was doing was rude. Pretty damn offensive to get through Chinese stoicism. Regardless, I avoided most of them and nearly succeeded in sneaking up on Tomoi. He was taking a drink from a water skin when I approached, but as soon as I was within 10 feet of him, he turned around.

"You telegraph your movements." He told me, bluntly.

I frown and sigh. "How many are likely to notice?" I asked. "Most people since I figured this out don't see me until they're looking right at me. I figured, combine this with a bit of actual stealth practice and some better chi flow it could work."

He hummed. "It will probably fool most of the Hand, but everyone who studied under Murakami will see you from across the city, as will the elder cultivators."

Right... Murakami's the literal shadow ninja dude from japan. The one who most closely resembles the Hand I know from the Comic books. "I was thinking of using Bakuto's students as cover and telling anyone who noticed me, telling them that I was practicing."

"I doubt they would believe you. Even for a Novice, you're horrible."

"Hence, the practice," I countered.

He nods slowly. "That could work. The big issue however is that you're alive, and they're not. Unless you've changed your mind?"

"It's that big an issue?" I ask, scowling. "Nobody else has commented on it."

Tomoi shrugged. "You're in K'un-Lun, not S'ahra Sharn" he replied simply. "Living cultivators must all face the Iron Fist in order to enter the sacred valley, and as such, they are brought here first. It is deeply rare one will end up in the under-city for a variety of reasons. Fearing to lose the cities wisdom and resources. Not agreeing with The Hand's worldview. Being killed by the Iron Fist upon entering Heaven. Being killed in the constant war of the lower slopes. Being killed for betraying the city and joining the hand. The Crane and Turtle at least know enough to keep their external agents out of fights they cannot win. The dead cannot interact with the living outside of the seven heaven's after all."

I chuckle. "That's not precisely true." I reply, shaking my head. "Ghosts and Poltergeist are a thing." Maybe, maybe not, but they certainly show up a lot in most of marvel continuities and MCU has both Ghost Rider, the ghost scientists he killed, Ava Starr and the Soul Stone whose powers are expressly about messing with ghosts.

Tomoi seemed to consider this for several minutes before nodding slowly. "This is not an issue still. The Iron Fist shares Shao-Lao's ability to suppress the dead and for them to leave, they must go through the pass he guards."

I frown again, this time in confusion. "Then... why doesn't he go down to S'ahra Sharn and 'fix' the problem of the Hand?" I ask.

The smith grins darkly. "Several reasons. The Fist must always be mortal, for when he is killed, Shao-Lao consumes his soul in payment for loaning his power. Following this, for all the Fists power to suppress the dead, he can still be overcome by immortal skill, uncommon luck or sheer numbers and his death would leave the pass unguarded. Third, for the Chinese dao to grow, pressure is needed.. What better pressure can there be than constant battle against a worthy foe? The conflict justifies the existence of North and South while the East and West tolerate it for the sake of balance and a diversity of paths for all paths are needed to understand the True Dao. After all, some souls will always crave conflict, and for them, _that is their heaven_."

It's my turn to nod slowly. Forever young, in the best shape of your life, and constantly able to push yourself against an endless array of interesting enemies where injury, death and holding back aren't worries? Yeah I can see that. The food and accommodations still suck unless you're part of the Jade Serpents order though. "And for those who revel in crime or find meaning in being minions or villains, there is S'ahra Sharn; _their_ heaven." I felt it as a bunch of confusing information about this pocket dimension clicked into place. My chi spiked and rose with the realizations as each new piece of information slotted in around it to form a more cohesive picture. It wasn't perfect, there were still plenty of _holes_, but it made... sense now. Or at least had stopped being incomprehensibly weird.

Tomoi too noticed the minor enlightenment and nodded in approval. To go all Star Wars for a moment here, 'there is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no chaos, there is harmony'. Less with the 'no' and more with the 'origin/goal', but Lucas tried. It's not his fault it goes over most people's heads. No matter, it was all chi to me.

"When you have completed your technique and are ready to hide your presence, there are several techniques for you." He wrote down a series of characters 忍者隠蔽 "Look for this when next you are in the Library. Ninjutsu and Nirvana have similar techniques by which to suppress and conceal the soul so others cannot see it. Also, should you choose to walk the Chinese path instead, forming your meridian and dantien are good means by which to hide an aura, as your excess chi may be funneled into building them rather than shining for those with eyes to see."

I stared at the characters for almost a minute before looking back up at him, face flat. "You couldn't have given me this months ago?"

He looked back, completely unapologetic. "You needed the experience, you don't speak or read Nipponese and these scrolls are on the libraries second level which you are only just being considered worthy of. Another feat of speed by the way, so do not complain."

"But could **you** have taught me?" I asked.

He looks at me side eye, "you **needed** experience. And no, I am not a ninja, I have not the skill to use or teach it."

I breathe out heavily through my nose, and nod sharply. "It's always enlightening to talk to you, senior."

"And alarming to watch you, outsider." He replies taking a long pull from a water skin.

"SO... how does one go about forming a core?" I ask. Seems about the fastest way to go about it. Once I learn the secret, use it like a games stealth bar. The formation sucks up my broadcasted life aura and using that energy will fund my own stealth skill in such a way that I can actually use it stealthily.

"Rushing ahead as usual." Tomoi chastises me. "Unless you know how to read sanskrit, the first step is Meridian. They will also improve your energy control, so it's worth it to learn them. Help me with the forge while we talk."

For the next five hours, Tomoi talked me through Meridian Cleansing and Core Formation. Meridians are something of a contentious topic in the world where I'm from. Acupuncture and other eastern medicines have become a rather pervasive fad to the point you can usually find one across from your family doctors clinic in america, and before I left there had been a stir about the Chinese using MRI's and radioactive dyes at acupuncture points to prove the existence of Meridians. There turned out to be something to it, but the correlation between what was written and what was found was about .4.

Meridians according to science are a series of hair thing vessels similar to the cardiovascular network, but instead of transporting blood, they transport a solution of stem cells and Lymph fluid. As the Lymph nodes are connected heavily to the immune system and stem cells to recovery, you can see how the ancient Chinese got the idea.

Meridians according to in your face real magic souls bullshit of K'un-Lun mixes the ancient Chinese energy paths with the science bit, except they blame the connection to your immune system for why most people can't use chi properly. The reason it's called Meridian Cleansing is because as you go through life recovering from illness and eating things humans shouldn't, these veins fill with, essentially, plaque. Acupuncture needles close the veins either by nearby pressure or actually hitting them, and force the body to clean itself by upping the pressure on the rest of the system. Moxibustion (hot rocks and massages) on the acupoints expand the veins so that the flow can open up and the plaque melt away.

Not so with cultivation.

As a cultivator, you use the power of your soul to literally drill your way through these veins, opening them back up by force and in the process widening and reinforcing them. Acupuncture needles turn from pressure on the veins to antenna drawing extra chi in like radio-waves and bypassing the need for multiple awakenings or active cultivation. Whether you go at it from will alone, or needles massages and hot rocks, clearing the plaque out of your body is a nasty business. Burning acidic urine, burning black stool or diarrhea, vomit, black tears and sweat that makes your worst hobo smell well groomed. Worse still, releasing this chi laden sewage into the environment is the cause of demon beasts, animal cultivators with a taste for human souls. And flesh. There's a reason Kitsune are so hated in Korea and China after all, it's not just culture shift, they're literally evil from the poison.

The upside to clearing out your meridians, is that once you get all 20, you're easily superhuman even without learning Iron Body, Light Body or any other magic techniques. You skin is as tough as treated hardened leather, though it doesn't feel any different. You bones are like steel bars, though they're not any heavier. You heal 20 times faster than a normal human, pull off the ever popular strength of 10 men trope from folklore and can go twice as long without food, water, sleep or chi draining in substitute. Sickness and poison take five times as much effort to affect you and you burn them out of your system four times as fast, though both of them clog up your meridians again, forcing you to do a bit of maintenance regularly. Swift thought, crystal clear memory, the ability to learn like a sponge and focus for long periods of time become an expected state of being rather than a focused effort. And most importantly? Your personal Chi flows through your body without resistance and fine control over the soul magic becomes possible.

The actual mechanics of clearing out ones meridians is fairly simple. As the soul forces it's idealized image on the body, anything that the body considers trash provides resistance. Moving your chi through your body is hard because of this, but keep doing it and the refuse gets swept away with the movement. Whatever the cells couldn't deal with themselves but wanted to. Free radical ions, indigestible chemicals, whether waste from natural processes or poisons you ate as preservatives, dyes and flavoring, excess oxygen or CO2, vitamins and minerals you'd OD'd on, certain types of fat and cholesterol, carcinogens and any bacteria that isn't considered beneficial to the running of your body. The body gets rid of much of this normally, but there's plaque like buildup in most cells wearing them down and making them divide faster. As you move chi through your body more and more, it's all cleared away and using your chi gets progressively easier.

This goes double for the meridians. Calm your mind and feel the flow of chi, your meridians stand out in your spiritual synesthesia as bars of iron compared to everything else. This makes them easy to focus on and attack. When the attack is successful and the plaque is removed, these same lines of resistance pool with power thicker and easier than any place other than your 7 chakra. The power of the soul flows through them so easily in fact that merely having them makes your ability to control chi skyrocket. An effect which is essential to the Chinese method of Core Formation, as without that control, forming the core in any of your three Dan-Tien is essentially impossible.

Or maybe not, as the Hindu don't bother with Meridian at all.

When the lesson ended and I left for the Library, Tomoi gave me homework. Work on feeling the meridians for myself. I should consider myself Lucky, Tomoi told me, as normally the Chinese started doing this before their second enlightenment and were forced to use only the power of their own body and soul to cleanse the Meridian. Because he had taught me, I could cheat and use the energy of the world around me to move through this quickly. I told him it was already a thing in Wuxia stories. He gave me a disgusted look and ordered me out of the forge.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

July 11th 1987

Finding my Meridians and becoming constantly aware of them was easy. Clearing them is proving to be hard.

This is actually a benefit though, as the effort solves a problem I'd encountered earlier with my technique. I was absorbing too much Yang chi from allowing light to pass through my body and needing a way to get rid of it. So, as I slink down through the tall grass of the valley, I use that chi to wash my body clean of corruption. Yang chi is light, it illuminates and scours, burning away the unclean with it's harsh judgement. I just take advantage of that. Doing so spends the positive charge, leaving me with pure neutral chi which I can add to my own without contaminating it. This can then become **_my_** Yin, or Yang once more and fuel the technique, solving the problem of how to keep up with the intensive Yin drain and my anemic ability and capacity for the energy. This made keeping stealth active without blaring my presence like a megaphone. Spiritually or by running around slamming doors like a maniac.

I've chosen to forgo the mountain or city today and begin searching for S'ahra Sharn because my patience has finally run out and the anxiety of 'what if my son _**IS**_ there' is getting to me. Id have essentially abandoned him to the Hand's Indoctrination for 8 months for my pride. As he hasn't appeared within the immortal city, they couldn't have killed him. Tomoi assures me he'd bee too valuable an asset for The Hand for that, but that only makes the worry sharper.

There's a LOT you can do to a person without killing them, after all.

Dark thoughts aside, I stealthily follow the Orders of the Crane and Turtle down the mountain. On the upside, they passed within 10 feet of me and didn't noticed. Living aura hidden, check. I already know my upgraded chameleon transparency works on civilians; as soon as I figured out the latest iteration, I tried it out in the market place and pissed everybody off by being a roadblock they didn't see until they ran into me. 50% in bright areas and 75% in the shade. Roughly. On the downside, not being seen on a battlefield means I can be hit by a stray attack and be forced to respawn at the Gate of Heaven. Worse, being suddenly seen by the more powerful warriors means I can be hit by a direct attack from a suspicious cultivator worried I'm trying to assassinate him and respawn at the Gate of Heaven. Both options are bad and strongly encourage me not to get close to the fighters.

After all, there's a difference between civilians and warriors who think battle stress is an instinct you should train more of.

The important thing will be to avoid the lines of Jade Serpent, Wild Tiger, Dark Mountain and Crane Mother on K'un Lun's side, and the lines of Bride of Nine Spiders, Prince of Orphans and Brother Wolf on S'ahra Sharn's side. Those are the elder cultivators with a focus on chi sensing, the elite of both cities. In the comics these six alongside the Iron Fist were the immortal weapons of the Seven Asian Heavens, but the MCU seems to have squashed that. Maybe it was their budget, maybe it was bad writing, maybe the Cassandra Theory of popular entertainment is true.

That last one would certainly make sense given my presence in this fictional universe. Either that, or very strong drugs. But if I'm that high off my ass I've lost my son to CPS anyway.

I follow the martial order of the Crane Mother until they meet their daily battle with the forces of S'ahra Sharn about halfway down the mountain. Off to the side is a patch of flowers that practically shout their presence, even to an idiot like me who's only _just_ begun to sense chi in the world around me. The battles are often like this, over resources such as chi cultivating plants or animals. Other days they' fight over jade and marble spirit stones or copper, iron and gold. Sometimes they fight a thousand duels across the length and breadth of the valley, other times it's a full scale melee.

As spears of ice, jets of flame, clouds of darkness or poison and boulders torn from the landscape begin to fly, I break off. My purpose here was to observe the stragglers from the undercity and get a bearing on where to start searching. General advice such as "follow the river" is all well and good, until you realize that there are three rivers in the valley. Though, calling any of them rivers is being rather generous. Sitting up on my hill behind the K'un Lun fighters I can see the trails in the grass leading back down the valley. Channeling extra chi from my limbs to my eyes and brain I slowly follow them back to the left most river. It's wide and shallow, filled with large rocks.

That's my lead.

Maybe.

Probably.

Skirting the battle as widely as I can while keeping them in sight, I make for the river. One there I risk the use of Qinggong to hop from rock to rock. I may be hard to see, and water's Yin balance may make that even better, but the more telltale signs of an invisible person sneaking around I leave, the less useful the effort.

Eventually I find the cave mouth that enters into S'ahra Sharn. It's hidden back in it's own ravine, like the door to Moria, but thankfully there are no such obstacles here. There are however plenty of people standing around as guards. They sort of make the place obvious what with being dressed as traditional ninja.

The problem is, being obvious doesn't make them any less effective. When dealing with literal magic Hand ninja, Wolverine's Inverse Ninja rule applies.

I move to stand in a shadow for the easier Yin gathering, becoming nigh invisible and settle down to watch.

The guardianship of S'ahra Sharn is a curious thing. The city is underground and far from K'un-Lun. Nobody I've talked to from the city would ever want to go there and unlike K'un-Lun the entire city is militarized. So why is there a guard on the gates? Who are they trying to keep out? Who or what do they want to keep in? The guardians are arranged in two semi circles like an amphitheater, and faced inward. This allows them to keep a watch on the gate, each other, the surrounding cliff faces and the valley outside their ravine. You simply cannot pick them off without more than two thirds of them being asleep. They're also spread out enough that you'd need a pretty big attack to get more than one of them, never mind all of them.

Techniques I do not have. But then, I never intended to fight my way in, either...

The air in the pass also stirs listlessly. Without going into a cultivating trance myself, I can't tell if some or a few of them are lightly cultivating on the job, if one of them is using an air based technique to keep watch or if this is a byproduct from some sort of spiritual sense acting on the area. Until someone I can sense passes through, this is essentially a stakeout.

Well, at least it wasn't unproductive. I HAVE found the city.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

The first of the fighters comes back four hours later. They're carrying only as many flowers as a thief could stuff in their bags rather than bushels of the magic plant, but they're also smoking. Whether they won and most of the flowers were destroyed, or this is just what they manage to gather before being beat off, I'll have to figure out later. It's maybe a quarter of the number I saw during the initial attack, but that's not a concern to me. What is, is seeing the entry protocol for the forbidden city. Hiding in plain sight will give me more leeway than hiding outright, if I can manage it. Otherwise, I'll need to wait till dark.

The damaged cultivators each make a salute of some sort, but I'm not close enough to see. Frowning, I move out of my current position to get a better angle. There's not a lot of options unfortunately, and so I end up having to scale the walls of the ravine behind the guards. Once up there, I do the trick with my eyes again, and watch as the last three Throw up Naruto hand signs and... shit, their mouths are moving under their burnt masks. Repeating the trick on my ear, I nearly fall off my perch as the absolute wall of sound hits me and I miss the password.

Shit.

Sneak in anyway? Or wait for the stragglers to respawn at the Gate of Heaven and make their way here?

The choice is taken from me by a sharp pain on the back of my neck. I've been spotted. As I fall, it's hard to think about anything other than how much preparation I've wasted. I only just manage to catch myself and land on my feet rather than my head and the chase is on. I'd try to talk my way out of it, but swords are out and honest to fucking god Kunnai are flying. My only saving grace is that in the shadows of the ravine, I AM still hard for them to see. A shadow within a shadow.

I duck, dodge and weave, thanking whatever gods may be for the increased flow of chi my thundering heart, adrenal rush and existential terror. For several moments I'm unsure if that's all that's keeping my hide intact or if they're instead herding me towards the entrance to the city.

On second thought, they're definitely herding me towards the entrance. The moment I try to move towards the mouth of the ravine, my narrow dodges turn into three slash wounds and a throwing star in my left leg. The question that remains then... is why do they want to help me complete my objective?

Throwing caution to the wind, I turn and flee down the tunnel.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

July 19th 1987

S'ahra Sharn would be a beautiful place, if it weren't also so harrowing. For the last week it's been an almost constant game of cat and mouse, and I've been unable to get more than half an hour of sleep before I have to evade another set of undead cultivators. Truth be told, I'm only still free because even Ninja it seems aren't accustomed to looking up. That's a trick THEY do, not one done to THEM. Add in the darkness of the tunnels and caverns enhancing my chameleon spell and I'm usually able to escape in moments and hide for hours, if the effort doesn't leave me bleeding too much.

My joke to Tomoi about maybe selling myself as one of Bakuto's chosen fell apart rapidly as each of the man's students student is given a sword forged with their chi and blood upon completing the New York Academy. This tradition dates back to Crete almost a thousand years before Christ apparently and moved to the United States when Bakuto sailed with Columbus fourth Voyage in search of Dragons. Gao and Murakami had apparently found some six hundred years earlier when they sailed with the Chinese treasure fleets to Peru. Bakuto set up his school in upstate New York in the 1800's when he found a Viking Rune-stone on Staten Island about their "Conquest of a nest of Great Worms alongside a small man with fists of light who fought with the rage of Odin." I can only guess at why Shao-Lao would want to kill other dragons beyond spite at their freedom, but I learned that little tidbit while sleeping in the closet of what turned out to be a classroom of some sort for the freshly dead.

If only I had my computer here to record this room for... posterity.

I'm taking a bite of what I've dubbed 'hell chicken' when the next attack comes. Spending time in this pit has sharpened and hardened by senses to a diamonds edge, so the moment I hear the whisper of flying blades I abandon my meal and jump. I land on the wall near the ceiling of the cavern and stick to it almost like spiderman. Its mostly the light body technique combined with pressure against a uneven rough surfaces, but learning to do that has saved my life more than once. I have to leave my position almost immediately though as a fireball fills the trajectory where I'd vanished to.

"We don't want to hurt you, Fresh Meat," the cultivator who found me says in English, "but we can't have an unknown mortal running around our city. It makes the dead nervous."

I'd cussed several of them out in English almost instinctively during the first few days, and so they'd been trying this sort of approach ever since. It would normally be a blessing to speak properly again, I only really get to do that when Tiger's Beautiful Daughter comes by in K'un-Lun; the problem is that any time I actually respond, another projectile finds its way screaming towards me.

I scuttle around the walls, trying to get behind him and too the exit, when a bit of falling sand alerts him to my movements. Fire springs up in the opening, forming a wall several feet thick and pulsing with the man's breath.

Fine. I have attacks too!

As he charges me with a sword made of flame I switch from just about 90% invisible to bright as the noonday sun and the man cries out in surprise and just a little pain as the full effect blasts him straight in the eyes.

While he's stunned and blinded, I try to leave through the flames anyway, but they get more intense and drive me back when I try. Dodging around another brace of small fist sized fireballs, I decide to take a chance and speak again.

"If you really just wanted to talk, then why the attacks." I ask, flipping overhead as the man pirouettes around a wave of flame following one foot and begins a clearly practiced sword form interspersed with bolts and arcs of flame all bracketed by that burning blade. "I can get the original hostility, I'm not one of you and was trying to sneak into your home, but your words and actions contradict each other."

I spoke for too long. A small bead of fire that shone like a star exploded only inches from my new position, staggering me and setting my clothing on fire. Shedding the white shirt was a lot easier than I thought it would be, what with the front of it on fire, but between the threads melting and terror strength I managed it before the rest of my clothes went up. Invisible again, I did my utmost to be undetectable and unpredictable again.

"My apologies, stranger. It is the lack of face you show us." I can't help it, I laugh. The cultivator however nods sagely. "I understand, it seems silly to white man, but we take respect very seriously in the east."

I laugh again. "No, I'm sorry," I reply, " I'm laughing at the paradox of asking an invisible man to show you face."

"Wha..." then the flame user snorts. "I see. Yes, Ignoring the language divide that is amusing. Unfortunately, to answer your question; I cannot let you simply surrender. You must be defeated for us to regain our honor and speak with you on equal footing. Every hour you are not in chains for your trespass is another affront to the Hand."

Then he lunges and very nearly skewers me through the heart with his sword. I take the action to punch him twice, once in the throat and again in the side of his jaw. Both blows echo with a thunderclap in the small grotto, but it's my hands which come away bruised more so than his face. Being in close like this forces him to dismiss his fire sword, but undeterred he instead blocks my next set of blows to his kidneys with a forearm covered in flame. My first attack to have any effect on the man comes a moment later when as he passes me and pivots to counterattack. I stomp hard on the back of his knee, driving it into the floor and blowing up chips of stone with the impact.

Then his pyroclastic backhand sends me flying across the cavern into one of the walls, my breath knocked out of me and another shirt on fire. I'm struggling to get it off when he appears over me and lands a blow right on my jaw.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

? July 1987

I wake up with a massive cramp in both shoulders and my jaw feeling like it's on fire. Jerking in shock as the pain returns me swiftly and brutally to consciousness, my arms cry out in protest as I swing back and forth slightly. Looking around through bleary eyes, I can just make out that I'm being suspended by a pair of chains affixed to almost bracer like manacles around my forearms. They don't hurt as though I've been suspended on my full wait from handcuffs, but then, the growth of my cultivation has been making me tougher.

Or maybe it's just the design of the gauntlets.

I wait for what seems like an eternity for anyone to come check on me, but no one does. Not even when I start cultivating in the cell. The Chi here is heavily with stone and darkness and the chains and torch provide a small amount of Iron and Fire, but what I need, what I _**really need**_ is water. Not for the chi of it, but for a god damned drink. Dehydration kills you in three days, but after only one or two you're already in hell. Chi helps some, latching on to the moisture of my sweat and breath and drawing it back to me. It further protects me by feeding me what I need for so long as I can maintain a decent flow.

My first effort, after devoting chi to sustaining myself, is to heal my broken Jaw and ribs. I can't do it in a moment like Iron Fist does in the TV show, I'm simply not that strong, but with the abundance of Earth Chi here I make progress. It's excruciatingly painful, and I can feel the fragments of bone in my jaw rearranging themselves before fusing together over a period of several hours. My ribs are faster and easier, having only been fractured. The breaks seal stronger than before with only an hour of effort and power dedicated to them. The next bit is weird... restoring my tooth. I don't know how I know, but I'm certain I can do it, that the fragment of bone and pulp still in my jaw can act as a seed while my body takes extra calcium from my body for the process.

That takes what I subjectively feel to be about a day before I'm spitting out the bloody fragment and my new tooth is sliding it's way up and out of the mandible. The saving grace of the process is that the chi devoted to the effort also healed the massive bruising in the area.

By the time I've finished, my captors still haven't returned and I'm beginning to get nervous. I didn't respawn at the Gate of Heaven, so they obviously didn't kill me, my plans aren't derailed yet, but if I end up imprisoned here for the next 13 years, they could be. I try wracking my brain for everything I know about S'ahra Sharn. Everything I learned in K'un-Lun, everything I can remember from the comics, everything I managed to scrape together here while I was frantically trying not to get caught. In the MCU S'ahra Sharn merely mentioned, nothing more. In the Comics it's the 8th cursed city of heaven only accessible every 88 years when the seven cities connect forming the Heart of Heaven and the Tournament of Heaven decides the order or precedent for souls going to each city. S'ahra Sharn is the magically sealed Forbidden City that houses the greatest evils of all 7 cities and can only be opened by the combined chi of all immortal weapons. Useless trivia in both cases. That leaves me with what I've learned from being HERE and the only thing I can think of are Tomoi's words.

"They would never kill your son, a living disciple in K'un-Lun would be far too valuable to them."

Is my son here and arguing clemency for me? Or am I to be the Living Disciple? If the latter... what do they want from me? What could the living do for them that they as dead cannot do? It's not about modernization, I've seen electric lights, plumbing and power tools around the city. They're doing well for themselves, despite the lack of complex chemical and mineral needs for things like electronics. I certainly couldn't help them there without materials, they're at the sweet spot between too much and too little advancement for my skills.

What comes to mind next is a fighter who can stand up to the Iron Fist. Shao-Lao's power suppresses the dead, making K'un-Lun's guardian an immense force in the city's defense and one they can't easily counter. That's ridiculous though, because I'm completely untrained and The Iron Fist is a who knows how old genius warrior with untold years of combat experience and an unknown cultivation rank supported by the full weight of a fucking dragon. Thats a non-starter if I ever saw one. Unless they have some miracle method of cultivation they can't use because the Dragon's Champion laughs at Ghosts? No... then they'd just apply it to enough people to overwhelm the fist or wait for a new inexperienced one.

Like Danny.

But they can't possibly know about him... Can they?

I shake aside such useless thoughts. If they know the future, then the Chaste wouldn't be the reason for so many of their deaths.

The last reason I can think of is to carry something out of K'un-Lun to aid their living brothers. Bakuto's raison d'etre is to spread cultivation to the world, but aside from Dragon Bone, he doesn't know enough of it to really matter. Captain America's after 20 years of training? Not enough. The Chi attacks Gao demonstrated? Maybe, but those take it out of the immortal, so they couldn't teach anything stronger and any alien, magic user or Inhuman would just laugh. Murakami's Raison d'etre seems to be simply to return home. He was the groups Healer, amusingly enough, and apparently required the most convincing to betray K'un-Lun. Gao just wants to be the groups kindly and conniving grandma; though she may want a way to restore her youth... Proper cultivation could do that. Sowande... who even knows about him. He seems to have everything he needs and loves his war with white Africans and Wakanda.

Alexandra Ried though... She's dying. Does S'ahra Sharn know? How I could possibly help them, I don't know. The Extremis maybe, but they'd need a lot of brainwashing for me to willingly tell them that.

My mind continues to run in circles for days getting nowhere, so while I wait, I cultivate.

Earth and Darkness are the strongest presences here, so I work with that. Earth runs up the back of both legs and squiggles around in the stomach and spleen. Darkness is all Yin meridians, accounting for both water and wood. Liver, Gallbladder, Kidney, Bladder, running down the front and sides of the body, but mostly through the core and the legs. We'll go with water for the moment. Front of the body flowing down the breast, diving in for the kidneys and then coming back forward to intersect the bladder before continuing down the legs. And if that isn't an opening for 7 year old boy humor, I don't know what is.

Drawing on both as much as I could, I begin attacking the Meridian lines, sinking deeper and deeper into a trance as chi from outside my body is drawn in to drill away at the mess of plaque therein. For the Yin of Water, I start at the bladder and work my way up to the kidneys. For Earth, I start at the ball of my heels and work upwards as well, counting on my arteries and Kidneys to eliminate the filth once it was dislodged.

An indefinable amount of time later I'm being slapped awake.

At first, I don't know what it is I'm seeing. The lack of food, deep meditation and increase in filth running through my blood has obviously caused me to start hallucinating, because in front of me isn't just any random Asian dude, it's Tomoi.

"Finally, you're awake." He tells me gruffly, holding a water skin up to my mouth. I drink, cough and drink some more while he continues speaking. "Several people came down to have that talk you asked for, but when we couldn't rouse you we'd begun to worry that you'd poisoned yourself."

"I need to pee." I groan.

The Japanese man scowls but nods, and picks up a bucket he'd apparently brought with him. "We figured as much." He carefully unzips my pants and then holds up the bucket. What comes out is not urine, but an almost acidic black syrup. It streams into the bucket like warm honey and starts to smoke faintly. "Again, you make a lot of progress in a remarkably short time..." he mutters shaking his head. "Makoto said you gave him that fractured knee and even managed to become nothing more than a heat haze to his eyes. Incredible."

"So, are you like a shape-shifter?" I asked, "Or an illusionist? Either way, could you take someone else's face? This is creepy."

Tomoi slaps me hard across the face and the black stream misses the bucket momentarily, landing on his shoes. He quickly removes the offending shoe and tosses it off to the side where it begins to visibly rot. I however, am not particularly caring. That slap felt like being smacked around with a metal slab. I can't see out of one eye and I swear several of my top teeth are going to fall out if I don't do something. Working my jaw, I fight through the pain and bite down. The detonation of agony in my skull almost causes me to black out, but the entire tooth is there, so Chi swiftly floods to the area to re-affix each of them. A complete healing will take me some time, but they're at least safe from being spat onto the floor.

Redirecting most of my chi to my eye, I do black out as several fragments of bone rearrange themselves. When I come too again minutes later, my vision is back. It's complete shit... but it's back. Looking around the room with my other eye, Tomoi is still there. He has a new shoe though and the bucket with the filth is being handed off to some rando. Rando looks excited though, as though the filth is worth something. I really don't want to think what, though I should probably learn just in case I get the chance to leave this accursed hole in the world and begin teaching myself.

"You ready to talk, gaijin?" Tomoi asks, turning around to see me conscious again. "Who am I kidding, you're always ready to talk."

"You're really Tomoi, aren't you?" I ask quietly.

He snorts. "Yes. Before you go on some self righteous rant about how could I possibly betray K'un-Lun or how you knew I was bad all along, think about it for a second. Hang there and really think."

I spit off to the side. "I don't care about that shit." I told him. "I care that my fucking friend would betray me like this. If you were Hand all along, you could have told me whether or not my son was here. I wouldn't have needed to train endlessly for a pointless rescue that in the end meant nothing. All those things you said about the importance of a living cultivator to S'ahra Sharn and the cause of the Hand, fucking hell, you were leading me here all along! I was just too stupid to see it. Well fuck you, you obviously don't know anything about me, or you'd know I'll make it my purpose to spite you! Shit-wad."

"Are you done?" he asked, clearly unimpressed.

I sneer. "Sure, let me out of these chains and I'll demonstrate."

He sighs. "You're a fool, Gaijin. There is no grand plan afoot, unless it is a trick played on both of us by fate itself. You met me of you own plans. You befriended me of your own foolishness. We are like minded, you and I. You plan to betray K'un-Lun yourself, to save your son, just as the Five did so long ago. But you needed this journey. You needed the goal to fight for. This? The quest through heaven to find your son? That **_IS_** your Heaven. Else you would not have left America to save his life, you would have simply abandoned him to the mother and child protective services you despise so much and gotten yourself out. You needed this journey to prepare yourself for the next one. Leaving K'un-Lun will require greater strength than you imagine, and only by training as you have for the last year for the next twelve will you be strong enough to pass the Iron Fist."

He spreads his arms and shrugs in the manner I taught him. The 'what is there to do about it pose'. "When fortune fell into our lap, who were we not to take advantage?"

I laugh silently to myself. This fool doesn't know what I know. How the Iron Fist will be killed by a plane falling out of the sky. How a spoiled rich brat will become the next Iron Fist only to abandon K'un-Lun to the Hand's tender mercies the moment the pass opens. I don't have to train at all, I just have to keep my eyes open. I open my eyes, gaze smoldering, quite literally, and ask a single question. "Is he here?"

Tomoi shakes his head. "We didn't know about the rift until you started spreading your story around the Immortal city" the Nipponese man replies. "I and several dozen agents within K'un-Lun searched it top to bottom and our men down here searched the valley. Unless Yu-Ti and his nobility have the boy, he never arrived with you. What you seek is beyond and behind the rift."

"...fuck" I swear in English. Black acid starts sizzling its way down my face but I don't make a sound. This quest just got a hell of a lot longer. I try to take solace in the fact that my 'friend' actually tried to help me, but honestly, he'd probably have used my son to blackmail me into helping him and the hand rather than appealing to me like this had things happened differently.

"What does the Hand want from me?" I grind out. "And what do they think they could possibly offer?"

Tomoi doesn't hesitate. "Your ability to dedicate yourself to a cause has impressed The Hand, and as a goal close to the hearts of the five fingers, we would like to make you an offer. The Hand requires a warrior of sufficient strength who is adept in the workings of the modern world. Finding these traits in common is remarkably difficult, you see. A living cultivator, trained by K'un Lun or S'ahra Sharn who can navigate the world and bring the fight to the chaste. Who, if we've chosen right, can save the other children in need."

I frown, "which ones?" The only children I can think of who both The Hand and Chaste fight over are the Black Skies.

"It is a bloodline known as the Black Skye." Tomoi explains, confirming my suspicions. "They are like the Iron Fist in that their power is deeply connected to the Dragons, and so can match the Iron Fist and even exceed them. But unlike the Iron Fist their soul is not consumed by the dragon once they die, they instead become dragons. Powerful, majestic and impossible to control."

"They also don't come here to K'un-Lun with you" I noted, "and could be used to suppress Yu-Ti's cultivators when you turn the tables." I reply, understanding.

He nods, but grimaces as well. "Well, not Yu-Ti. Even after nine thousand years, he still lives. But we have plans for that. The important thing is to replace or balance the Iron Fist."

Which explains why Alexandra Reid thought Electra could actually help her take over K'un-Lun. To kill the Iron Fist, the cultivators of the immortal city and possibly even replace Shao-Lao. Fucking hell.

"And after explaining this, what makes you think you could meet my price?" I ask nastily.

The smith's face stiffens. "Simple. To find your son you will need to travel across dimensions. The Hand can get you an invitation to Kamir-Taj. Your good heart and need will get you past The Ancient One's interview, but you will still need a master to sponsor you. We have one. Your commitment will be to safeguard and train a Black Skye until the Hand can return, and in exchange, we will get you into the Masters of the Mystic Arts, your single best chance at following your son."

The Jokes on them there too, but I might as well play along. Both of us have much to do if we want to play our parts and we can't do it here. "Done. So, how do I get out of here?"

He lets out a massive sigh and smiles at me. A broad grin, perhaps the first I've ever seen on his face. It's usually just small smirks. "First, you will need to assure the elders of your sincerity." He explained, walking forward with a key. "Then we will need to smuggle you back into K'un-Lun. I have managed to convince Wild Tiger that you are training on a distant peak and she shouldn't worry. Your progress the last few days on your Meridians will be enough to prove that to everyone. Only the Crane Mother is truly suspicious, but she commands the Iron Fist as though she were truly his mother, the bitch, so we will both need to sneak out of here and avoid his gaze."

By that point he had undone both of my legs and one hand. He had the key in the final lock when he looked into my eyes. It was almost as if he knew I was contemplating turning invisible and seeing just how far I could beat the shit out of him.

He undid the final lock and I fell to the ground. My legs were wobbly and barely caught me. "Ugh."

"You have a severe case of blood poisoning," he told me flatly. "You will need to purge yourself again before we leave here." Then he grimaced in disgust. "The alchemists will want that, so do it in another bucket, not the toilets. It's not a deal breaker, but the elders will be mad at you for upsetting the alchemists."

I make a face. "What do they even want that gunk for?" I ask, disgusted.

"Do you remember that chicken you were eating when you were caught?" He asks lightly, putting my arm over his shoulder and helping me walk.

"It was the size of a great Dane" I nod. He furrows his brow in confusion. "About twice the size of a wolf."

He nods in understanding. "Under normal circumstances, most plants, beasts, people and objects do not cultivate, but in a spiritually rich area, anything which survives for a century unchanged can accumulate the spiritual weight which allows them to do so. Places, heirlooms, and trees mostly, but ancient wise men as well. This was how cultivation was originally discovered." I nod as he drags me along. That makes sense. It also explains the tendency for cultivators in folklore to be religious, scholars or old widows. If they can discover it independent of study and tradition, then they can then make the traditions to study.

"But as I told you when we were discussing Meridians, the black filth as you call it, is the reason demon beasts exist. The corruption, laden as it is with the chi used to purify the body, can force a spiritual awakening in plants, beasts and insects almost immediately making them grow large, twisted, bloodthirsty and cultivate rapidly. This does not work on places or objects however, corroding and often killing nascent spirits. There have been efforts in the past to apply the same principle to people, but those efforts were... destructive. Many legends of demonic races were born from these efforts or accidents which achieved the same."

"And other demons are literal demons or aliens." I add. When he looks at me oddly. "The Ghost Rider and Kree."

He thinks for a moment and then nods. "Yes, I see. Even still... Our alchemists have experimented deeply with corruption, forming it into special medicines we can use to control the evolution, size and demeanor of demon beasts and sacred herbs. They are responsible for most of the cultivating plants and animals in the valley. We would keep them all in our cavern if we could, but that's simply not possible. Even if we can control their growth, the plants at least still require specific mixes of local elements much of the time. If we only engineered the plants and creatures of the undercity the number of recipes we could use would shrink to almost nothing. So, we accept the war with K'un Lun, setting infiltrators among the city to steal back much of what we made, and keep us sharp for the final battle when we will own all of heaven and need not fear the high city."

I know he's framing it as sympathetic when it's probably not, but how many really think they are the bad guys? Even when they are clearly in the wrong, there is always a justification. I could probably solve their little issue with greenhouses and a crew of elemental cultivators. It'd be a pain in the ass for those involved, but the more they give to the plants, the faster the plants could help them grow. Unfortunately for them, I'm feeling pretty spiteful right now. It'll be something for me to test and research privately...

But that is all for later. For now... S'ahra Sharn's answer to Li Hua, Lei Kung, Priya and Yu-Ti.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

As Tomoi dragged me towards the alchemists and my vision slowly returned to the eye the rat bastard had damaged, I am reminded once more that chi may be messing with my mind.

It has been noted in the past that I had a tendency to be too clever for my own good. Overthinking things and screwing myself over in the process. Much like magic itself, really. I had always hated the corruption angle most stories went for, insisting to myself, my friends and the author that it is the person that is corrupt, not the power. Power is after all only a tool that allows you to do things... bigger, and the corruption you're seeing in those who gain it is what was already there simply becoming obvious. If it was suppressed at all before their rise it was suppressed by the inability to act on said corruption...

But what if we were both right?

Chi is your soul upgrading you to yourself, but MORE. So... Like an activist in their echo chamber, the vile corruption of those burnt by power is you and your principles when taken too far without a friend to hold you back and keep you grounded. Like my enthusiasm for working out since my original awakening. My mistrust of the Elders after Priya and Lei Kung wanted to go medieval on me. The pride and impatience that drove me to try and sneak up on mother fucking ninja...

I even know how they caught me too, now that I'm past panic and have a chance to reflect. Daredevil season 2 was all about how the Chaste and Hand taught themselves to track opponents blind by their breathing, heartbeat and the whistle of a weapon parting the air. Detail was given on how Matt had to go to progressively more ridiculous heights of hearing as they suppressed those sounds. Theoretically, chi can allow me to do the same, substituting chi for oxygen in my blood and the beating of my heart. The draining of my chi during such an exercise would suppress my presence to those who sought others by their chi, and dark clothing of the stereotypical ninja would take care of most visual aspects. I've already learned the modified qinggong that allows you to walk silently.

I squeeze my eyes closed and groan softly, prompting Tomoi to drag me along faster. Here I am, having figured out what was wrong with me, and moments after that epiphany I'm already falling prey to that which was revealed. Unfortunately, I don't know how to suppress my chi or interrupt the threefold cycle. All I can do, I suppose, is 1) give in, 2) research the more obscure texts in the hall of ancestors for a solution or 3) actively work on myself. Changing your nature is possible... but in most cases it takes a significant trauma paired with both inner and outer discipline. My friends here... yeah, no. Outer discipline isn't likely to be a thing in this case.

At least I have the Relevant Trauma Wake Up Call part down pat. Yippee...

Inner discipline? Debatable. I can focus on self improvement pretty damn hard... but success has been somewhat variable, and that was before magic became involved. Still... I'm nothing if not determined.

Some things will have to wait however, as we've arrived at the alchemists.

"Fa Zha, I need an assistant." Tomoi told the man who opened the door to us.

He looked me over, fingering the veins on my neck. "This is the one who..."

Tomoi rolls his eyes and pushes through. "Yes. That bucket was from him. We need another."

He nods, and ushers us into the building. "FITZ! Get over here! We need an extraction, get the needles and a pail!"

The alchemist assigned to help me purge the rest of my impurities is a startlingly British Stereotype. I'd swear he was a blond version of Nigel from The Wild Thornberries Adventure, complete with giant hooked nose and buck teeth. He's wearing what looks to be a hand-stitched khaki safari uniform complete with pith helmet and far too many pockets, but it's made of some odd shimmery material with an uneven weave. Also handmade, I'd guess. In his hands are a bandoleer of needles and what I'd swear are glass milk bottles. He looks me up and down with a broad grin on his face and sticks out his hand. Offering him mine, he yanks it forward and sweeps up my three remaining shirt sleeves.

"Hmm... acute prana poisoning. Smashing to meet you by the way, Ignore those other chaps, none of them have quite the class of Ms Reid's company." He said gesturing to the several dozen men and women rushing around the shop before jabbing one of the needles into my arm and placing the milk bottle under it. He then flicked the needle with his finger and it sparked. Immediately a feeling of ice flooded my veins and black ooze began to issue out of the end.

"That would be Alexandra Reid?" I ask, voice dry and cracking. He hums and snaps his fingers, conjuring a ball of water from writing streamers in the air.

"Here, drink this" he orders. "Smashing to meet another member of dear Andra's party, absolutely smashing! Names Fitz-Lyode Pemperton, at your service. I had you pegged form one of Bakky's boys when you stumbled in here, given you're a yank and they've got a flair for overcompensation!" The various alchemists around the room seemed to be half asian, a third African-Black and the rest a motley crew of African-American, White and Hispanic.

I scowled, but took the comment for what it was. I did deserve the admonishment after all. "What day is it?" I ask, my voice considerably less croaky after the water. "And how did you get" I wave my hand around gesturing at nothing in particular "here?"

"It's July fourth, I believe! A rather auspicious day for you yanks!" he replied, giving me a disapproving look before continuing. "I was part of the Indian expedition, died 1843 trying to penetrate the Meru portal. Impaled from behind by an Asura. Went straight through five layers of shielding! Nasty business. I didn't originally respawn here, but the inhabitants of the mountain were rather insistent I not be a part of their British quarter. Uppity blue tossers."

"Meru? The infinite mountain?" Tomoi asked from the other side of the room.

Pemberton turned around, grinning toothily while he removed the needle from my arm and then jabbed it into my neck without even looking. I winced, but somehow the inattentive jab had failed to cause any stabbing pains. Either that, or I'd been too distracted by the date to notice. The fourth of July. I'm getting out of this hole on independence day, what are the odds? "Precisely, my boy! Lady Reid has been surveying each of the seven cities, seeing if she can't gain support for her faction here." That hadn't worked out for her, obviously.

Still. "How does this work exactly?" I ask, swiping one of the needles from his bandoleer. Examining it closely, it's clearly a hypodermic needle. I can't imagine how they made one though, unless it came with someone through the gate? Unlikely. Metal cultivation perhaps? Some very delicate work in that case. I'm kinda impressed if that's right.

"Silver, my boy!" the Brit exclaims. "Silver is an agent for cleansing evil. Long history in many countries that! I just inject a bit of yin into the metal and the corruption resonates to it, like iron filings to a magnet. After the Yin gathers it together and the silver begins purging, your blood pressure and opposition from your chi do the rest. Better than sweating it out or drawing it into the stomach for a good vomit! Stuff is a bugger and a half to get out of cloth. Acid burns everywhere!"

That was... interesting information. I allow Fitz to prattle on for several more minutes, extracting the impurities from my blood and listening to him jump from topic to topic, almost scatter brained in how one thing led to another. According to Mr Pemberton, the seven cities of heaven in this reality are Avalon on an alternate version of the Isle of Mann shrouded in impregnable mists, Eden beneath the waves of the Persian gulf, Z'Gambo in a system of 'holy' caves in Ethiopia, Xibalba accessed by a ziggurat in the Yucatan, Meru in the kashmir region of India, K'un Lun in the Kuenlun mountains of china and the last being sealed beneath the ice of Antarctica after the flood. Pemberton's admission that he'd originally died in Meru implied that moving between heavens was possible for the dead, but did he move while the respective portals were open? Or while they were closed? Was it possible for the living to do so? I've tried going over the mountains since gaining the ability to scale them with the Light Body technique, but simply ended up on the other side of the valley I'd just left.

Pemberton himself has visited Avalon, Z'gambo and Eden before his death at Meru. He described Avalon as "a rather rowdy place" hosting every European pantheon short of the Aesir and more than a dozen popes. Rather than being gods, the many pantheons of Europe were all immortal humans somewhat akin to the elder cultivators here. The major difference between here and there though was that the Greek, Roman, Celtic, Germanic, Russian and other sundry 'gods' in Avalon collected spiritual energy through worship, something that sort of curtailed popular use and limited cultivation to folk heroes and those who could gain and build a cult following. This was later usurped by the Catholic Church with their saints and popes. While the extreme faith of the occasional paladin could do in a pinch, it was the worship they and the folk heroes and demigods before them received from the towns they saved or terrorized that really got the ball rolling. The pagan 'gods' in turn fell out of favor not because they'd faded away from the public consciousness, but because a war in Avalon between the Greek/Roman pantheon and the Celts had unleashed the previous pre-flood generation, the Titans, who killed both of them, trapping the groups in heaven. Catholic Rome had later killed the rest with Jesus Light and Roman steel.

This worked in their favor eventually though, as many saints and popes efforts to stamp out old European traditions ended with them traveling to Avalon, only to be met with several pantheons of very angry immortals in the mist. Between the honey trap that was Avalon, the nature of cultivation in Europe and the church's own efforts to stamp out any knowledge of how to go about cultivating that worship, the practice largely died.

Eden, slightly contrary to what Tomoi had told me earlier, is where cultivators confuse the Lightforce and Darkforce for chi, cultivating them in tandem and misusing all three. Or four, as it were. These cultivators spawned the legends of angels and demons that festoon middle eastern religions from Sumeria to Persia to the Jews. Christians and Muslims just sort of followed the Jews, though in the case of Christians in Europe this mixing of cultural practices was a large part of why cultivation died out in Europe.

Z'gambo, reportedly, is as hostile to the Hand as K'un-Lun and for much the same reasons. Pemberton goes on for several minutes about the row between Reid and Sowande over the later's blunder there, but apparently killing several black panthers for sport bars you from the heaven where they're one of the chief factions.

As Pemberton begins describing his part in the expedition to Meru though, he finishes with my blood work and Tomoi is hustling me off to meet 'the elders'.

"Fitz," I say as Tomoi begins dragging me towards the door. "I'd like to talk again, if that's not an issue. Think you could help arrange that?"

"Certainly, m'boy!" The blond Thronberry lookalike replies excitedly. "That would be smashing! Do you like boxing perhaps? Or fencing? These Asian sorts look down on good honest fisticuffs and I can predict my own fellows blindfolded these days."

I shrug. "I'm more a scholar myself, but I could learn."

"Smashing!" he calls out as Tomoi loses patience and yanks me out of the doorway.

"You shouldn't encourage him." Tomoi says gruffly as we walk. I offer him a raised eyebrow in response and he continues. "Your position must be one above suspicion going forward. You'll be in the same class as infiltrators like myself, and if you get caught coming down here you'll be expelled from the city. Worse for you, you'll likely be killed first, compromising yourself with both faction and curtailing any plans to find your son."

And this is how it starts. If he'd just been warning me off..., but no. Compromised with both factions. In a land where death is not an escape.

I suppose there's always the wheel of reincarnation. I'll have to investigate that and see if there's some sort of Akashic record perk for being reborn with your memories in tact.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Evening July 4th, 1987

Where K'un Lun has four of the 7 champions from Iron Fist, S'ahra Sharn has the other three. Not five for each of the fingers, three for the remaining comic book characters. The Prince of Orphans, Brother Wolf and Bride of Nine Spiders.

The Prince of Orphans is Bakuto's champion, named such for Bakuto's tendency to mass recruit orphans from wherever he happens to be located to fill his personal army. The Prince, or Princess as in the case of Colleen Wing, is Bakuto's most talented student in that generation, and this dude is the most talented Bakuto ever taught. Or maybe just the oldest swordsage Bakuto taught...shrug. Something of a departure from the comics where the Prince was a black man taught by Tibetan Monks how to become a psychopomp, this man is a Greek Swordsman who claims he fought beside Alexander the Great before being humbled by Bakuto in the Hind Brahamata, an ancient college now reduced to rubble by modern day Pakistan.

Brother Wolf is Murakami's champion. The line of champions started because of the man's passion for hunting rare and difficult creatures (such as the dwindling demon beast population) and the bond his ninja developed with the dogs he kept around. In nearly Ranma Saotome esque fashion, it developed into something insane, to the point each champion is taught to psychically control any dog they get within 30 feet of. Many of the pack the champions regularly keep become spirit beasts and their chi helps train Murakami's next champion and any new members of the pack. This isn't much of a departure from the comics beyond trading a heavenly city in southern China for The Hand in Japan to be honest.

Finally, Bride of Nine Spiders is Madam Gao's champion, is much the same. Named such for the giant spiders the women keep to make their poisons. The champions attend to them, and in turn are taught how to use her Yin chi to make clouds of poison that do anything from cause disorientation to death in mere seconds of injection, inhalation or skin contact. Caustic acids, hallucinogens, paralysis, pain amplification and a rather alarming variety of healing tonics are also part of this training. By the point of the series, Madam Gao has moved from assassination poisons to cash crops like synthetic heroin laced with dragon bone and tolerance inhibitors, but the bride is still a major asset.. The one in the show, Alissa Gomei, is an entomologist in south Korea, running her own lab with cash flow from the spirit beasts venom. Venom powerful enough to overwhelm the Iron Fist. Or... at least; the inexperienced meat-head Danny Rand.

Sowande and Alexandra Reid don't have champions. Or rather, Alexandra does, but the black skies don't come to K'un Lun when they die. If they die before having their power activated by an infusion of dragon bone, nobody is really quite sure what happens to them. If they die afterwards, they resurrect repeatedly until they become a new dragon, a process both faster and far more physical than the usual mental degradation of those using dragon bone medicine to cheat death. Three new dragons and nineteen active Black Skye have been born by this process since the Hand began trying to use the Black Skye to return to K'un Lun but the dragons are uncontrollable and often had to be destroyed by the Iron Fist when the chaste could not behead them young, jobs that often killed these sent to do them, Iron Fist or Chaste army.

Sowande on the other hand simply has no use for champions, as he spends his followers lives as frivolously as the african warlords he battles for sport.

The chamber they meet me in is beneath an amphitheater with three sections facing a two tiered pulpit. 'The Spider Queen' is sitting off to the side smoking something in a pipe while lounging on a chaise longue, her body barely covered by strips of cloth that seem to eat light. Brother Wolf is leaning against the back wall, a small shih tzu on his shoulder and a gigantic Akita-inu panting at his feet. His clothing is fur, but subtle waves of light play over the hairs, prompting shivers as I watch them. The Prince is the only one who's taking this meeting formally, and is sitting behind a large black marble desk that absolutely hums with power to my novice senses. His clothing is that of a modern suit though the material seems to be silk… or maybe steel? Ironsilk? It doesn't creak like metal mesh as it moves, but the undeniable impression of metal fills my mind as I look at it.

"Tomoi tells us you are ready to work for the Hand." The dark man behind the desk rumbles in smooth english.

"Tomoi exaggerates." I reply deadpan, making the smith go rigid beside me.

The room is still for a moment while the Prince of Orphans brings his hands up to his mouth, lacing his fingers together. He stares at me as though he's considering a piece of meat. Tasty, inviting, but moments from bearing a blade. "Does he now?" The greek asked. "I notice that isn't no. Tell me what it is you want, and I'll consider it. Do not blame me for my actions, however,.. if you try my patience."

"I am a scholar and a father." I tell him simply. "That's why I have progressed so quickly (and if Tomoi is trustworthy) why you have any interest in me at all. A mere mortal or a poor cultivator would likely have been slain the moment I was caught at the gates, simply to deny and spite K'un Lun. Or if I wasn't, I certainly wouldn't have been let out of my cage after a mere tacit agreement to help. Also, I have only Tomoi's word that my son is not in the undercity. I am well aware that my lurking did not cover more than a tenth of your fair domain, and because you were aware of me he could have been moved. I am prepared to do a great deal for my son, even decades of work for a shadow organization I have no interest or loyalty in... But I need something I can trust that says he's not here, being withheld from me, before I can agree to that. Finally, S'ahra Sharn claims to be an expert on demon beasts and one of your alchemists offered to teach me in return for light sparring. Tomoi says this is ill advised, because you need me to be in deep cover. For all this I would like to negotiate."

Cold, yet somehow seductive laughter issued from spidergirl on her couch. "Oh? Is that all?" she asks, drawing a finger down her side. "You don't wish for something more… valuable?"

"No." I reply flatly, wiping the smile off her face.

Her eyes bore into me and she huffs, indignant before turning away. "I'd warn little brother to watch his back, but I hear bushido types enjoy that sort of thing, eh, Tomoi?"

Tomoi doesn't shift, but I can feel him frown. I sigh heavily through my nose as the Prince of Orphans and Brother Wolf look irritated. "I arrived at S'ahra Sharn shortly after my wife of 15 years drowned and strangled our two daughters in the bathtub and tried to do the same to my son. To my detriment, when I discovered them and pulled her off of him, I also threw her down the stairs. Because I did not immediately finish the job, this was sufficient for the family court to deem me an abusive husband and attempt to charge me and take away my surviving son, Nicodemus. Would you like to know what she said in her defense before judgement? She did it because I spent too much time with the children and she felt alone. She claimed she didn't hate the kids, or want to spite me, she simply killed them so I would have more time and money to spend with her. The family court felt this sympathetic enough to assign her to mental hospice for five years instead of life in prison or execution. Forgive me, but it will be several years before I am interested in romance of any nature."

Brother wolf barks a laugh. "If you could not even do this, what use have you? To fail at avenging one's family?" He spits on the ground. "Such an unreliable tool is useless, kill him."

Spider girl looks contemplative however. Pulling a needle out of her hair, it ignites a sizzling jade smoke. "I could help you with that," she tells me, seeming somehow genuinely sympathetic "let you move on." The feeling is clearly unnatural but still I want to give in… until the Prince raises his hand and the air seems to shatter, dismissing all of the unnatural feelings.

"I swear on my cultivation base, that your son is not, to my knowledge, being held by any member of The Hand or anywhere in S'ahra Sharn." The Prince states firmly. "Will you swear your fealty in return?"

"I swear on my cultivation base, to protect the Black Skye until the Hand can return to K'un Lun." An unnatural perception gives me the impression of iron bands wrapping around my soul. The chains are inscribed with the words of my oath and I somehow know that should I consider myself to be doing something to break the oath, my power will be disbursed and the first enlightenment will need to be recaptured for me to start again. That means the Princes own oath was binding also. I feel my heart sink like a stone. Tomoi was telling the truth. This excursion really was a waste of my time and an entirely unnecessary risk.

But… maybe I could recover something from it. After all, I'd promised to protect Electra and that boy Stick kills in the Daredevil TVShow, not something so foolish as 'serve The Hand'. And 'the hand returning to K'un Lun can have many meanings. Such as my killing them all. Or helping them achieve their goals. Or waiting for them to figure it out on their own.

The Prince probably understands that too, as he frowns. But then he nods and says "that will have to do. On the matter of alchemy however, we will need something more. Your oath that this knowledge will not be shared with K'un Lun is the minimum bid I will accept, and for that you will only be granted basic lessons. If you are a scholar as you say, that should be enough to conduct your own research."

The knowledge would be largely dependant on my own research anyway, once I left the sacred valley. Still, knowing the history of their research and how they dealt with massively corrupt demon beasts and hell spores likely to result from the initial gunk would be essential. Not just for learning how to make medicines to control the mutations, but also for using the right amount to awaken a plant or even a field of them, to power. Jade Spirit Rice anyone? Yin-Yang Carp. Moonbreeze Silk. And other silly yet startlingly accurate names.

"I would be willing to swear not to knowingly or by willful negligence share knowledge gained from S'ahra Sharn with anyone loyal to the valley of K'un Lun." I reply, reasonably. Dog boy scowls while spider girl smirks, amusement sparkling in her eyes. "But what if instead I were to pass if off as my own work in the immortal city and share my ongoing cultivation research with S'ahra Sharn? Tomoi says you are impressed with my progress. Perhaps my path can provide you similar results? Further, if K'un Lun is no longer wasting their corrupt essence and instead spawning their own spirit crops, your infiltrators could bring back far more than mere fractions of what you yourself seed across the valley. You could in fact see so many fields appearing that the Hand could harvest some of them unchallenged."

"We have thought of this, outsider." Brother wolf speaks up. "But that would give us no advantage we do not already possess."

"It may not tip the balance of power, that is true" I agree, "but in raising the quantity of resources available you still benefit. Greatly, immediately and in the long term." I make my case. "You have seen this in the recruits of this last century. Competitive production benefits everyone, even as the best process sees personal advantage." I state emphatically. "As the group with the most research and most experienced researchers, you will have and keep that advantage during my stay in the valley and almost certainly after I leave."

"And what do you get out of it? Hmm?" spider lady asks, blowing an orange smoke ring at me. "No schemer such as I see ever does anything without benefiting the most from the transaction."

"As the one 'doing the research' I would have preferential access to all resources generated by my efforts. Be they learning tools, cultivation resources or sacred artifacts. I would grow stronger and more important while acting as a weight on their own advancement, further developing your advantage from the largess." And developing my own cache for when I eventually escaped. The outside world is highly unlikely to be the spiritually rich environment it is inside, so the more plants and animals that can be enlightened, the easier it will be to not have these 13 years be wasted once I'm out.

I have a number of ideas on how to bust open that rift, with and without the Masters of the Mystic arts… but getting any of them require power as a starting point or they rapidly become insanely difficult to pull off.

The three of them seem to be considering this thoroughly. Brother Wolf is the first to speak. "You will be given a chance." He replies. "We know you cultivate separate from the others; continue to do so alone on your peak. Our envoy will meet you at dusk once a week to exchange scrolls. We expect you to release our studies slowly." He finishes gruffly.

The Prince cocks his head to the side, seemingly listening to something. "Do well, and we will see about inserting Lord Pemberton into your sphere. The Iron Fist of this age does not know him, but the Thunderer is familiar. You will be responsible for ensuring they do not meet. You will likely be collateral damage if they do." Then he looks to Tomoi. "Lead him out through the L2 entrance. Blindfold him before you exit and keep him so until you're away from recognizable landmarks."

Tomoi bows stiffly to each of the three and then leads me out of the room. Even after the door shuts though, I can hear Bride of Nine Spiders whisper in my ear. "Don't worry, honey. The crazy ones leave their mark, but it's nothing a few good experiences can't erase. I'll see you have your son and your sanity back before you know it. Trust Gao Li Lan..."

Even a half an hour later as Tomoi and I enter the sunlight for the first time in almost 2 weeks, I'm not sure whether the shivers running up my spine are hope... or dread.


	3. Laying a Foundation

Tomoi tried to blindfold me as he was ordered upon exiting the hidden side entrance, but the last month's experience hiding myself and my clothing allows me to turn small holes of cloth in front of my eyes transparent with almost absurd ease. After enhancing my eyes and removing the barrier, I take in the landmarks, burning everything into my memory. How Tomoi opened the door, how he closed it again, the rocks and ridges in the area, the placement and type of trees and shrubs. All of it.

After all… sneaking into an unguarded entrance and exploring a city that's not looking for me is SO MUCH EASIER than sneaking in the guarded front door. Flubbed recognizance mission notwithstanding. Plus, now that I'm "part of The Hand" even if I get caught again, it'll be fine. At least until word gets up to the line of champions. Best to keep a low profile when I try this. My quasi-arrogant impatience just about got me killed last time when it wasn't supposed to go any further than scouting.

I shudder at the thought and Tomoi, misinterpreting my reaction bursts into a warm radiance, like that of a fireplace. One would think that being able to live something approximating a video game existence with endless respawns would be fun as hell, but when your first respawn removes the logout button… heh, well, trapped in a game is a genre as well, and it's generally rated 'horror'.

After leaving the small crag holding the door, Tomoi takes to the skies, as it were; Superman jumping his way up the mountainside and crossing over the ridge. After doing this a few times so that our location on the map's edge is thoroughly confused, he grunts and takes my hood off.

"Think you can get back on your own?" He asks gruffly. "The orders will have watchers ready for you, so appearances matter."

I nod, not wanting his presence and watch him leave.

I'm still… conflicted about how to handle the man. Do I consider him a traitor or shady friend? Which of us is more responsible for fucking me over? Did the experience in fact fuck me over? My Chi is stronger for the experience, but not by much, given I've had similar already. The intense emotions, thick chi of the city and week completely of uninterrupted meditation allowed me significant progress on my meridians, I can see why seclusion training is a popular trope… but I was also imprisoned and shanghai'd into a criminal organization who I've even less empathy for than this callous 'heaven'. Viewing his actions and words in hindsight, Tomoi was very obviously preparing to lead me to The Hand; but my own actions and possibly some chi based head fuckery were pushing me to do a lot of stupid shit involving them in the first place. My willingness to commit their same 'sins' for the same reasons being a prime example.

In the end, I make no progress on sorting myself out by the time the sun is down and the milky way blazes it's trail across the sky.

As a shifting groan in my stomach reminds me I've been eating chi and fuck all else for a week I give up my musings as a bad job and begin the process of returning to town. Ah for a Diablo style Town Portal… Kamir Taj cannot come soon enough.

The first step, finding K'un Lun, is at least relatively easy. The city is a pretty major landmark despite the grand expanse of the valley. Once oriented, the next step is to make my way down the mountainside to the valley separating me from the cliff city. Deciding to take it easy and effectively announce my presence, I use Light Body to glide down the slope like a kite, passing a herd of Yak-things on the way down. The effort takes several jumps regardless and is about as exhausting as simply walking the distance, but being able to imagine myself as flying makes the chi cost entirely worth it.

I'm 'found' by several Disciples of the Crane Mother near the stairway up from the lake where the temple gets its water.

"Outsider! Your presence is required by the Crane Mother!" One of them called out, stepping forward. "Come quietly or be suppressed!"

I raise my hands in surrender. "I was under the impression Priya would rather never see my face again," I comment calmly, approaching slowly "did something change while I was training?"

The disciples grab me roughly and twist my arms around to be bound by a strip of cloth behind my back. The force is rough enough it goes straight through my minimal chi enhancement and nearly dislocates my shoulder. "You went out for daily cultivation and returned two weeks late. You could not be found on any of the peaks when Wild Tiger sent out searchers. The Crane Mother suspects you of plotting with The Hand against K'un Lun. You will answer to the orders for your absence." He grinds out as we begin to march up the stairway.

"I was unaware seclusion training was against the rules" I reply. "Surely Priya has bet..."

I would say more, but a fist slams into my kidney. "Silence, outsider. Your cursed tongue is not worthy of her name. You will address The Crane Mother by her title and defend yourself before her, not us." Wisely, I remain silent for the rest of the trip up the stairs focusing instead on healing my kidney. It took much less chi than I expected from the pain, something I think is thanks to my opening the associated meridian.

Once the seven of us are in the Temple of the Crane mother, the disciples force me to my knees, kicking out the backs when I refuse to cooperate. The moment the struggle ends, Priya walks in. Now that I have the senses to look for it, her silk sari hums with the power of wind and wood while her jewelry buzzes with water and darkness.

"So, you have learned to cultivate after all" she murmurs, grabbing my chin and moving my head this way and that. "I had the last disciple to tell me so whipped for lying. I will have to reward him in apology now." She squeezes and my jaw cracks audibly. "Where have you been these last two weeks? Do not dare to lie."

"Ig ah cav, culthiva-ing." I slur through the pain. She lets go, shoving my head back and to the side and I take the reprieve to devote my chi income to healing my jaw.

"Two weeks and you're halfway through four meridians?" She scoffs. "Liar! You had the help of an alchemist! Who was it; that we could not find you or your accomplice?"

I spit blood onto her polished tile floor. "I took neither potion nor medicines, Crane Mother." I counter. "My progress is due to my autistic focus, a soul heavy with experience and the sparse tutelage of a man who cares little for my safety."

She hisses like the bird she's named for. "I know you're lying to me, but I cannot sense it when you speak. Swear to me and I shall call this a misunderstanding."

"I swear what I have told you is the truth." I bite back. Technically it is. The alchemist in S'ahra Sharn gave me only water and had nothing to do with my progress, only my recovery afterward. I was cultivating in a cave during my absence, pretty consistently too, as evidenced by my progress on the stealth technique as much as my meridians. There's just a difference in semantics between a cave city beneath the mountain and a natural cave higher up on the slopes.

The Nepalese woman narrows her eyes. "Swear to me on your cultivation."

"I swear on my cultivation this entire situation was a result of my overeagerness and not thinking things through rather than any criminal activity. That I have used no alchemist's remedies to speed my cultivation and spent the last two weeks almost entirely alone in a cave..."

Her eyes blaze, but then she schools her features. "Barely a tremor in your soul. Fine. I can eat crow when the need arises. You have become a cultivator and are progressing along The Path. That means you will need to join a sect. In recompense I offer you a place in my Order of the Crane Mother. We will correct your poor foundation and strengthen your body to handle..."

"No."

She stills. "What. Did. You. Say?"

"Thankyou, but no." I reply. "I must refuse."

"You will receive this honor..." She tells me steel in her voice. "To do else would be to show me a remarkable lack of Face. I could not be blamed for my actions in such a circumstance." The threat is clear in her voice, though not her words.

"I wonder what Yu-Ti would have to say about that." I ask bitingly. "Such a high ranking subordinate with so little self control. It would show him a remarkable lack of face."

"Brothers Chodak, Rabten." Priya barks. "Help him up so that he might be shown his deficiencies. One cannot teach a student who's cup is full."

The sash binding my arms is removed and I'm hauled to my feet. Before they can start however, I vanish before their eyes. This time, I don't breathe, using chi to facilitate oxygen exchange in my lungs. Under normal circumstances your lungs are about 17% efficient at oxygen absorption and you can, at most, hold your breath for a minute. Athletes and dolphins can do so for half an hour at nearly 80% efficiency. Chi takes the place of that training, and Quingong provides me with a silent step. Without my breathing, silhouette or movement to track me by, I quickly evade the disciples.

"Silence, you fools!" She orders, before looking around like a bird, cocking her head this way and that. I touch down and push off the floor, heading in another direction and Priya strikes. A ripple of air blasts through the space where I'd briefly paused and shatters the wall behind it. It's the same strike Madam Gao uses in Defenders and Daredevil. I hop again, something none of the disciples can hear, but the Crane Mother does. She's suddenly beside me, grasping at the air where I just was as I float away.

This time I land near the doorway. Moving carefully, I make no sound even the monster herself can sense, but as always seems to be the case in this place, something goes wrong. A hand lands on my shoulder and with a feeling like stepping into a dry sauna all of my techniques fail at once.

"Such vulgar actions." Yu-Ti murmurs from over my shoulder. "What quarrel would disturb an old man's rest?"

The question is obvious bullshit; the Jade Serpent sleeps at the top of the winged tower dominating the middle of the city; not the austere warrior temple on it's fringes. I'm tentatively grateful for the deception regardless. There's a shifting off to the side, and I get the barest glimpse of Li Hua smiling before she vanishes from my line of sight. She was waiting for me as well, like Tomoi predicted and brought reinforcements.

"I overdid my training" I answer swiftly "and ended up spending two weeks in a cave, Jade Serpent. The Crane mother suspects me of stealing from your alchemists to aid my progression, even after swearing I had not."

"Do not answer for me, child!" The woman snaps. "I suspect him of far more, August Jade Lord. He hides things and proves his disloyalty to K'un Lun who sheltered, fed and taught him by refusing membership in our temples; an honor he barely deserves. He could not possibly have developed such effective techniques on his own; he is obviously working with The Hand!"

The ancient cultivator nods solemnly, one hand behind his back, the other firmly around my shoulders. "Indeed. I see." He replies pleasantly. "Your progress is rather remarkable for an outsider… but then, most outsiders come to us already well past your point of development, so their requirements are greater. Perhaps this is to be expected. While overeager, young Priya was correct. You will be required to choose a school and swear loyalty to K'un Lun or have your cultivation bound."

"Have I not already sworn to Wild Tiger and The Hall of Ancestors?" I ask. "Just now I swore on my cultivation her claims were unfounded."

The ancient cultivator chuckles. "The Tigers daughter will be pleased by your faith in her." He shakes his head. "This is a greater commitment than access to the first level of ancestral knowledge. None of us expected you to learn our ways in less than a decade. Either you were closer than we imagined to awakening on your own, or Tomoi is a greater teacher than we realized; an achievement he should be rewarded for. Come, we will perform the ceremony in the morning. You will spend the night in meditation on this development."

As the dragon led me away, Priya protested. "Honorable Patriarch, why do you protect this unworthy one? As Matriarch protector, I need to know when I can and cannot chastise my lessers."

He smiles, nodding at her. "I understand. Know that Tiger vouches for him and I find his antics amusing. Fear not, your concerns are heard and treasured."

Politics for the win?

As Yu-Ti leads me off, Li Hua joins us. As she nears, she pulls a paper banner out of her chesongam and all noises cease. "Report." She orders me. "What was the outcome of your scouting mission? Did you find your son?"

My jaw tightens. It's my fault. If she didn't have a witness telling her I went in, my earlier explanation of my intended training combined with my two week absence would have been enough. "No." I reply heavily. "I wasn't able to search the entire city though, they kept finding holes in my technique and chasing me with swords of fire and other elements until I could escape. That's what took me so long to return. Finding a way past them. One does not simply leave S'ahra Sharn."

She snorts. "You predicted such. Yet you went anyway. Why? I told you you could have asked the master," she nods to the Jade ruler.

"It wasn't… supposed to happen like that." I reply with a sigh. "It was supposed to be the first of many missions, not a suicidal charge into the depths." I turn to the quietly chuckling old man. "Honored elder, do you know the fate of my son?"

"We have investigated your entry to the valley. Many of my greatest resident pupils have probed the rift and discovered that it was caused by the improper use of three keys. These artifacts were most probably destroyed in a single strike, judging by the short life and instability in the opening. My sages have tracked the chi signature back to Xibalba, the city of heaven near your homeland. The road that brought you here cannot be retread. What was once can never be yours again. It is best you let go and accept your life here. As for your son, we were able to confirm that two souls tied to your own survive, each in a different dimension. They miss you terribly, but more than that we do not know."

Two souls. Nico and fucking Mina most likely. Unless Cassie or Lily are somehow ghosts. At least Nico isn't going to be trapped with the homicidal wo...

Three keys? An explosion! Xibalba… The blue tear explodes in my minds eye and a memory comes back to me. Season 5 Agents of Shield. Xibalba is the 'fear' dimension, though Pemberton called it one of the 7 heavens. It was accessed through the Temple of the Forgotten by three Kree Monoliths. Monoliths that were destroyed briefly by a Kree beacon exploding in the Lighthouse facility… forming a rift. A rift very similar to the one Nicodemus and I were pulled through.

I know how to reopen the way.

As that epiphany hits me Chi is vacuumed into my body, refreshing me and my soul expands just the tiniest amount. But that leaves the question of where Nicodemus is. Is he in Xibalba with Izel and Sarge? Or some other yet unnamed reality? When I get access to the monoliths, will it (the white stone of Time) transport me to when he was taken? Or however many years it takes me to find them after that? And how can I ensure it's the right answer?

"May I ask why I was not told this earlier?" I ask carefully.

The old man smiles while Tiger frowns. "You never asked. Dear Tiger tried to tell you, but your spirit would not be swayed. After, it did not seem right to interfere with your dao, and I'm sure you'll agree that the results speak for themselves, young sparrow."

"Sparrow?" I ask, confused.

He nods. "Sparrows work constantly and frantically, attack and harass those far their superior and sing boldly rather than prettily. But… this achieves impressive results for them and their children."

I snort. "Outside K'un Lun they call that being the 'Brash American'. Trade princes hire us when they need an advisor to suggest something they can't get away with saying themselves."

Tiger shakes her head. "This is unimportant. Your respite was two dragons seeking position. I need to know everything that happened down there, or Red Crane will take advantage. The Honorable Yu-Ti was willing to extend me this favor because your antics amuse him, but the situation is far from resolved."

Of course, politics. I had guessed as much when they retrieved me. It's not for my sake, so much as I'm the symbol of their struggle. A proxy for the two women. And so, as the three of us walked to my apartment, I told them everything.

Well, almost.

Everything I was truthful up until Tomoi pulled me out of the cell, merely citing how I was removed due to the advanced concentration of impurities in my blood needing to be purged. I then told them about making my way out the secret passage, which I described as an air shaft and the condition in which Tomoi dragged me back to the Eternal City. They listened intently, asking questions and having me expand on various parts of my experience. It was difficult to avoid talking about the promise I had made to the Hand Elders, but frankly, the threat that it would be far harder to explain doing so kept my tongue flexible and my mind sharp.

When finally I was let go, it was with my stuff in a better apartment than the one I've been squatting for the last year. I was so exhausted I didn't even bother unpacking, just lying down with my suitcase and duffle bag on the woolen futon and going out like a light.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

July 7th 1987

The ceremony to join the Order of the Wild Tiger was a simple affair. It took place in one of the city squares which had a mosaic of a white bengal tiger on the black side of a Yin-yang. There were twelve other initiates from around the city joining us, one of whom I recognized, the girl who explained my apartment's food offerings to me. The thirteen of us kneel on small fur matts before a number of Tigers subordinates who run the various districts and city utilities while several thousand of the long term citizens, all also of the Tiger School, watch on from the sides.

Each of us swear on our cultivation to "respect the elders of K'un Lun in their authority and wisdom; to defend the city with the patient fury of a tiger and work to build a place of peace and safety for souls transitioning from one life to the next." After which, we're given white kashmir wool robes woven from the goats herded by Tiger Initiates. This as opposed to the austere saffron and burlap for the Crane and Turtle disciples or the silk robes for Dragon Disciples.

Once everybody has their robes, the officials recite a verse which we all repeat. "The crane spreads her wings, the mountain casts its shadow, the dragon contemplates heaven and the tiger holds its territory." Somehow it's poetic in chinese. Why territorial Tigers are the builders rather than crane who builds nests, the dragon who lair or the turtle who hauls around its shell, I've no logical rationale, but I suspect it has something to do with the origin story for Tiger's Beautiful Daughter.

In the Iron Fist Comics, Tiger Island, the sixth heaven, is a tropical island off the coast of North Korea. Here, women cultivated martial arts and chi into a wild and reckless fighting style that won them great renown while the men were builders and farmers. The year after Tiger's birth, Mongols invaded the heavenly island and slaughtered all of the women warriors, leaving only those women who were too old, too young or had never bothered learning to fight in the first place.

To save the heavenly city, the men treated the invaders to a feast and tribute, using their hammers to smash in the heads of the drunken warriors. They then negotiated on equal terms with the survivors to keep the women docile and provide tribute in exchange for peace. The raiders agreed and left heaven, taking with them their spoils. Thirty years later, the Mongols returned with a larger force and Tiger's Beautiful daughter learned the truth of the past. She rallied the women of the village to fight and ambushed the Mongols as they burnt the holy city. Following dreams given to her by her mother (the true wild tiger)'s ghost, she took on the spirit of the Tiger and became one of the 7 immortal weapons.

In this reality, the tiger seems to still be sleeping, as it were, and she'll likely not wake until Danny Rand's betrayal of the city lets The Hand invade. Or who knows,.. Given she's the head of her order, maybe her story happened long ago? It would fit with Disney's laziness to not have fleshed out their stories any.

Regardless, after taking our oaths the various Masters Of The Tiger sorted through the 12 other disciples, claiming or rejecting applicants. This part took several hours as a few of my 'classmates' were fought over, one of them literally.

When they finally got to me, I was handed a scroll with my job among the order, penned by Wild Tiger herself. Four hours a day running maintenance on the bathhouses and the scripting techniques that run them and another eight hours following up on the corruption pills from the 'book of alchemy' I'd 'discovered' in S'ahra Sharn. All four elders were interested in having a better supply of alchemical ingredients with which to make cultivation pills. Even the Jade Serpent sect who made and got preferred access to them still had to ration the valuable drugs.

I decided to start with another construction project. The greenhouse Idea I'd had when in the undercity. For that, I'd either have to see about hiring/requisitioning some people or figuring out how to create runes to spool up the powers I'd need. The bathhouse ran off them, after all. It shouldn't be too hard, right?

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

September 2nd 1987

"Errhm! M'boy, if you don't mind my interruption?" Opening my eyes to the late dawn light, I quickly suppressed my irritation at being interrupted in my morning cultivation as I recognized the british accent.

Grinning down the slope I greeted him. "Lord Pemberton. A pleasant surprise. I suppose you're here for that spar? Or is The Hand coming through on their offer of Knowledge?"

Pemberton grins broadly, showing lots of teeth. "Smashing! You catch on quick!" He takes off his khaki shirt and folds it crisply in a blur of movement. Underneath the cloth is a rippling mass of muscles and scar tissue, including a large white mark over his heart, like the eye of a lizard or cat. Putting up his fists in a boxing pose he speaks again. "I prefer to meditate while moving or with milk-tea and a project, myself."

"Maybe you could teach me that later" I laughed. It'd certainly help to restore my downtime if I could gather power while working. Hopping down off my rock, I looked down at the folded shirt and saw a book laying atop it. Grinning, I went into a loose stance. My empowered mind allowed me to more or less memorize the various stances and patterns of combat I'd seen around town, but other than using them for stretching and Dynamic Tension training, I'd never really bothered to learn or practice.

"Sir, I was wondering if perhaps you could answer something for me."

"I could but try." the colonial man replied, jovially. "Don't throw a wobbly if I can't do anything though."

I paused briefly, considering what that might mean. Coming to a conclusion based on context, I brushed it off and moved on. "I worked for six months on cleansing my body, and another three on my meridians, but only got small improvements. In S'ahra Sharn though, I was able to half clear four of my Meridians in the space of a week. I thought it was due to my extreme focus while I was hanging there prisoner, but in seven weeks of trying the same, all I've managed to finish clearing one of the four. Is the power denser in the undercity? Is Yin better for cleansing yourself? Or is it something else I'm missing?"

"AH! I see! Do you perhaps remember a certain doomcock you encountered prior to your capture?" When I frowned in confusion, he explained. "The giant rooster, lad. You killing and eating it was how they found you." My eyes widened and he continued. "Smashing! Alright. Beast meat has properties similar to that of elixirs, as far as power gathering is concerned. It is typically of lower quality, however, on the order of pound to gram. On top of that, digesting it comes with a boost in your level of corruption. It's quite the tradeoff, but as corruption is what allows us to make more beasts, the ability to recycle is a useful one. Any other questions?"

"What's with the silk?" I asked, throwing a punch. "It looks odd and all of the higher ups seem to covet it." I dodged several punches before taking one on my forearms. Each of his blows was getting progressively faster and stronger. "Is it a, uff, rarity thing? Ahk, or..." I was cut off as the blows were now coming too hard to reliably block. Focusing some chi into my brain I began deflecting and parrying rather than blocking and continued my question. "...is it something to do with cultivation nobody told me?"

Pemberton had a broad buck toothed grin on his face as we circled and traded blows. He occasionally gave me pauses and openings, his return to attack becoming punishing if I didn't at least TRY to capitalize on them. "Ace m'boy! Ehrm, yes. Silk is one of the best conductors of chi we've found so far. Wearing it allows for collection and expulsion of chi without damaging our clothing in the slightest! Something lesser fibers often fail to achieve, to a variety of results."

"Some of the champions believe it's to do with being a transitional material. Insects use it to cocoon, you see? Moving from one life, that of a worm, to another, that of a bug or fluttershy. By Meru's reckoning, worms are among the lowest form of life and insects not much higher, while butterflies are one of the highest forms alongside the cow." He started mixing basic kicks into the fight, forcing me to change tactics again before I could begin processing that. "Personally I think they're all barmey, but there is something of a qualitative difference between the silk of say, a moth, a spider or a cricket. I prefer spider myself, it's produced much more often and in greater quantity, even if you have to braid it to get the propa strength for weaving."

I grunted and tried to take a more aggressive stance, pressing him because he'd told me before he'd been getting bored with fighting those he knew. "Have you tried using different types of spider? What's the difference between egg sack vs webb thread? Dragline silk is pretty strong. If those sort aren't here, what about demon beasts?"

Fitz-Lyod laughed in delight as he blocked and dodged my unorthodox strikes. "Lexington form over Oxford! Bully!" he crowed. "Yes, egg sack thread is swell for sutures, as the birthing aspect enhances mystic healing! I've never tried it for clothing though. Perhaps bandages? My current clothes are from earth and fire aspected spiders. I had one of the brides help me with that, a lovely woman named Jung-sook. The earth enhancement strengthens the threads so they can form a proper cloth, while fire is my primary element. Now, those lessons you asked for..."

As we continued our 'fight' (I was sweating like a pig, while Pemberton looked as though he were just doing light stretches) the conversation turned more towards English Kickboxing. He corrected my form, left openings so I could run through drills and generally seemed to have fun. Despite myself, I found myself enjoying the conflict as well. As Fitz explained it, the trick to boxing, marathons and active cultivation were all the same. The Fugue state one entered when the blood thundered in your ears and drove out all extraneous thoughts. Where the asian methodology had you clear your mind by willful deprivation; the european knighthood had spent centuries developing the ability to do the same through action, narrowing your will to the next action, progressively discarding wasted thought and movement until you were so focused on what you were doing that all else disappeared.

We fought for another two hours till I was out of stored power and continuing on the flow coming from within. All the while, I tried to bring the idea of the suction force of meditative cycling into my actions. As my vision began to tunnel on Lord Pemberton's eyes and flickering fists, I felt it. Energy beyond my soul began to trickle in, giving me a feeling of relief. That destabilized my fugue, dropping me back down to where I started, but it was a foundation to build on.

In the end, I worked on the problem for another seven hours, and didn't even notice when Fitz left. I ended the day however, able to cultivate, at the very least, while working out. Coming down from my high, full of magical power, I found My skin was covered in a sticky black tar like substance which itched something awful. It was cleansed corruption, bled from my body through sweating and it had caused my pants to melt off my body.

Grumbling darkly, I began peeling the foulness off of my body and rolling it into a ball. My chi helped me to keep it from sticking to my skin and hair beyond what you'd expect from a girls facial cream mask. Eventually I'd finished digging the black stuff out of the nooks and crannies of my body and collected it into a ball about a third the size of my fist. A black stress ball that oozed a spiritual sense of unease and nausea. If I didn't know how valuable this concentrated crap was, I'd definitely hasten to get rid of it.

However, I was late for work at the Bathhouse and Pemberton was gone, leaving in his wake, the book I'd spied earlier. Grabbing it in one hand, the corruption in the other, I stealthed and began to head home.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

October 1987

It took me two months to full work out how to cultivate while doing other things and once I did, I started doing so almost constantly. Getting really into my work isn't odd or unexpected for me though, so other than noticing how rapidly I go through clothing now, nobody comments. Holding the corrupted mass however is somewhat complicated, as it rots just about everything except Glass.

With this in mind, I went to find the city glass blower.

Said glass blower was a shed that connected the Potters workshop to the Forge. The man inside was from the Warring States Period of China around 200 BC to 200 AD and was the half blood son of an egyptian and Tibetian. His family lived along the Silk Road, which passes pretty close to K'un Lun and for the most part, sold beads for necklaces and other jewelry. Making glass of any quality requires numerous tools from the smithy and access to the potters annealing oven, something neither group really appreciated so the man, Abrahem Lao, spent most of the last two thousand years learning how to perform his craft using chi.

That, in fact, was probably a large part of the reason he was tolerated by either potters or smiths guilds.

Well, that and the fact that he was a member of the Dragon Sect. His silk robes are something of a giveaway.

Convincing him to craft me a series of glass jars was… difficult. He kept telling me to go to the potters and ask for celodon. Eventually though, I managed to get him to agree by telling him about my greenhouse project. A project that would need a large number of large glass plates and complicated glassware for a chemistry set. It came all the way down to drawing the plans and images out for him before he agreed to help. Getting him to teach me required that I explain everything I could remember from a documentary on glass making from national geographic. Glass blowing in particular was of interest here.

Finally though, I managed to walk away with several thick glass jugs to hold corruption in. I squeezed the rubberized ball of filth I'd been keeping on a rapidly flaking piece of granite in my quarters into it and added a bit of blood to dissolve the mass before capping it.

Step 1: Swipe silver of corruption cleansing needles from Fitz. Complete.  
Step 2: Learn a better cultivation technique. Complete.  
Step 3: Get glass bottles to hold corruption. Complete.  
Step 4: Feed corruption to something small and easily controlled or killed. Pending.  
Step 5: Profit.

April 24th 1988

Translating Pembertons book is going slowly, having been written in code. It took me a while, but I eventually I sussed out what he was doing by rotating the pages before feeding them into my translation program. He was sounding out English words and writing european right to left rather than asian top down, but everything he said was written in chinese pictograms… as a phonetic. Getting the hang of it is proving to be a bitch and writing a translation algorithm into the program's source code was similarly difficult, so I foolishly tried to forge ahead on my own.

Once I started clearing my meridians more efficiently and had a steady supply of corruption, I'd tried to start with enhancing rats. I figured they were small, unwanted and easily killed, so nobody would really mind me doing so and the results would be easy to handle. Unfortunately trying to work without S'ahra Sharn's notes caused a horrible mutated monster that just about killed me. The rat became a whirling ball of shadows, teeth and unadulterated fury that went straight for the throat. Holding on to it resulted in poisonous acid burns and trying to catch it was like chasing after a greased pig. When I finally managed to smash the thing, I'd needed a full meditation draw of chi for the rest of the day to heal from the wounds. With that in mind, I went looking for other methods of advancement while I worked on translating the book page by page.

This was where working at the bathhouses for the last ten months has paid dividends. I'd initially thought I'd need to search carefully for how to create runes, but four months in, I'd been given a lesson on just how the scripting was done after I'd accidentally scrubbed away one of the rune sequences regulating the woman's hot spring.

Runes, or barrier formations as my supervisor and bathhouse boss Jai Fong calls them, are artistic formations of blood and corruption. Tomoi had told me long ago that K'un Lun wastes its corruption, compared to S'ahra Sharn's method of feeding it to plants and animals to force the creation of demon beasts and sacred herbs. I don't know, but personally I'd have to argue with him. Rune magic is cool as fuck, incredibly versitile and pretty stable over long periods of time. Though, I suppose demon beasts and sacred herbs create their own feedback loop generating more of the mess, where runes are only a material sink.

What is and isn't corruption is determined almost entirely by what is and isn't healthy for the body. The resistance it causes chi seems to be an effect of the material literally sticking to the energy like epoxy. This is bad for learning to use chi, because it makes the energy difficult to move; while said movement is the essence of cultivation. Once out of the body, that same property has fringe benefits. The large amounts of chi required to dislodge it remains with the filth, at least for a while, allowing it to be used to jump start the spirituality of plants and animals.

Runes work by a similar idea.

Techniques work by forming chi into specific shapes out of energy and throwing it at your target. Corruption, which holds chi to it, can be formed into similar shapes and keep the chi there without mental effort from the user. This is useful because it means that you can create permanent techniques that last for as long as the writing does and can be re-cast without needing to train someone in the technique shown. It's not even a precise art, as making the shapes similar but not identical can form useful variations of a technique at very little effort.

Or degrade them to the point they're better used as a bomb than their intended purpose. Which, depending on the situation, can be just as useful. Trapp items for instance.

These shapes, by and large, are incomprehensible squiggles. But if you squint your eyes and tilt your head just right, these squiggles also look similar to the various asian languages, suggesting perhaps an origin for those languages. Trying to read them as Chinese, Japanese, Korea or Indian yields poor results. Most historians think this is because an artists 'style' (required to qualify as a scriptor) amounts to sloppy handwriting, but that's not… entirely... true. I think it's more likely things changed from this original form to more modern alphabets as a result of drift over centuries. Though the thick sticky ink corruption forms is just as likely a culprit.

Regardless, feed pure chi into these formations, and it will do exactly what it's intended to every time, even if the user doesn't know what the creator intended. Feed the right chi into the right shapes and you can pull off miracles. This is why Davos was so against the art museum cleaning the "Tibetian Singing Bowl recovered from Qinghai" in Iron Fist season 2. He insisted that cleaning it would destroy the bowl. A thorough museum restoration would likely remove the 'caked on bodily fluids' so I'm forced to agree with him. Though, at the potters workshop, I'm told it's typically worked into the glaize rather than painted on, so maybe not.

Adding it to metal on the other hand is a pain in the ass, perhaps explaining Tomoi's lack of esteem for the art. Working corruption into the metal weakens the alloy. Painting it into the metal means it's easily washed off, either by blood, cleaning and preserving oils, or just being stupid enough to clean the metal. Like me. In most cases, this is done by carving the runes into the blade and then filling the depressions with corruption. This helps, but not a lot. Fortunately, chi will sit on the metal like any other inorganic material. Absorption is a bitch, taking centuries, but it'll lay on top of the metal for weeks, at least.

Glass has most of the same problems as metal. Fortunately, I don't particularly mind painting formations over trying to directly enchant the material. Unfortunately, a greenhouse tends to get really humid. Fixing this problem currently involves laminating the formations between two panes of glass. This is more difficult than it sounds as Abraham questions literally everything I do, criticizing me with the zeal of every elitist everywhere.

Ancient Chinese Glass making came to the orient through Egypt, after the tsunami flood waters subsided and civilization rebuilt itself. It traveled along an early version of the silk road mostly in the form of jewelry and was made from roughly equal parts sand and witherite; a jasper variant high in barium oxide and lead along with 4 or 5 other trace elements. The glass was typically green, because of the Lead and it along with barium were added to lower the melting point of the sand to where shity ancient forges could work with the material. Glass today is made of 75% sand, 20% salt and trace amounts of aluminum, magenium and various metal to stop the salt from dissolving the glass when wet. Salt takes the place of barium and lead in this case, but it makes the glass vulnerable to thermal shock. PURE sand/quartz glass can be tossed into water while white hot and survive, where glass made by Abraham and modern factories need an annealing kiln lest they form a web of stress fractures and explode from the outside cooling too much faster than the core.

Because K'un Lun cheats by using chi in place of fuel and safety equipment, I was eventually able to convince Mr Lao to help me forge the panes of glass out of pure sand, forming clear glass sheets, rather than the murky green stuff he was experienced with. This, so long as I could spin up the necessary power to complete the project. It was obviously something he didn't expect me to accomplish, given he'd been perfecting his art for nigh 2000 years and never did it that way.

This is where formations come in.

Figuring out the formula I wanted to use took some time, but eventually I found a barrier flag in the library that was meant to form a firestorm in the middle of a series of forty one flags. The technique was meant to destroy an army or even a city, using only a few chi masters. With a few adjustments, however, it could be made to contain heats in excess of 2000 degrees within a small area. Adding another formation meant to float stones in the air allowed for a crucible 300 degrees hotter than the melting point of silicate. Add in a set of stone rollers and Abraham Lao's utterly heat proof hands, and sheets of glass quickly became a reality.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_

May 28th 1988

Of course, once we started producing large amounts of glass from simple sand, people started to get interested. Li Hua, among others, had expected that I was going to simply make a garden, and that the delay in my research was due to the time it took to research the absurd notion of feeding plants and animals corruption. But as the sheets of glass began to stack up outside of the forge, underlings were sent to investigate. It wasn't long until Mr Lao's work, multicolored beads, figurines and of course, our now sheet glass for windows, quickly came into high demand. In less than a month, I went from fighting for his attention, to being his favorite person in the entire city, to once again, fighting for his attention as apprentices, customers and patrons began to flood the sour mans workspace.

In that time, I'd managed to get two thirds of the greenhouse completed. It wasn't as good as I'd hoped, not by a long shot, but now I had my own premises to work from. Originally I was supposed to have five buildings, each a long row of typical greenhouses, one for each element. With my new troubles, stemming from Mr Lao's meteoric success, I had to convert it into one large five sided building. Almost as much space, but lacking the ability to discreetly section off environments I'd hoped for. While troublesome, this is not a deal breaker, due to the valley itself being a single biome. Or three, if you count the snowy peaks and S'ahra sharns small cavern, but I don't have access to the plants and animals in the Hands territory and so little grows above the frostline.

Each of the five walls hold a laminated glass barrier formation set to spin up large amounts of the five chinese elements. The writing does this by first drawing in chi, then looping it through an item of the appropriate element and then storing it in the motion; each loop purifying and concentrating the power. This is the same way cultivators gather power normally, but in reverse and is particularly useful for my own cultivation. Eventually, the setup is intended to be the power supply for various inscribed pots, each holding a different type of sacred herb. The ceiling itself possessed another loop, spending the day building up a charge of Light Chi to be released overnight providing growth potential 24/7. At the now open center of the building I intend to set up a glass forge of my own, as well as a pottery Kiln for making the pottery that will feed specific minute mixes of elements to the plants later when this project finally gets a breakthrough.

That will have to wait until I've finished translating Pembertons book though. So far, I'm 180 pages in, and the text is all about Pembertons own adventures since meeting Alexandra Ried.

Fitz is quite the character, to be perfectly honest. Starting his association with Ried as one of her patrons in the British colonial expansion, his writing paints the utterly fascinating story of a young nobleman taken on a whirlwind adventure into magical lands. A renaissance man at their finest, Lord Pemberdon has dabbled in Avalonian politics, made friends and allies in a secret order, gone on adventures through Africa, lost a lover at the gates of Z'Gambo, fought beside Reid's forces against Sowande another member of The Hand, attempted to breach Eden in a dive suit only to be turned back by an angel with a flaming sword, partied with Bakuto at his palace in Kashmir India and finally died at Meru. Quite a full and adventurous life.

That was the chapter that fascinated me the most. His death, his time on the infinite mountain, and finally his banishment and journey to K'un Lun.

The primary cultivation method of the Indian Heaven has seven Dantien, or chakra, not the one of three taught here, and I was deeply interested in knowing just how that was accomplished. The answer, according to Pemberton, is what Chinese tradition calls the Prime Vessel. It is the twenty first and second faux meridian which runs from your crotch to the crown of your head and back down. All twenty of the other meridians intersect these two lines at one point or another in their winding path through your body and in acupuncture it's used in a similar manner to test points in electronics.

The Hindu don't bother with the other 20 meridians, because they do everything on these two lines. Yang flows up the spine, Yin flows down the line of symmetry and the seven chakra form at the eddy points between the two flows. Something I can only imagine becomes stronger with the other meridians. Each swirling pool is conveniently bracketed by a set of major nerve branches which snake their way out of the spine to connect the rest of the body to the central column. As far as the chinese are concerned, the Dantien correlates with the sacral chakra, heart chakra and third eye chakra.

But that's where they diverge.

The chinese method demands that to form your Dantien, you must form a Dao, a path that you will hone for the rest of your life and use that as the catalyst to compress your entire cultivation base, all 20 meridians worth of energy, into that single idea on one of those three locations. For them, core formation is like clearing out the meridians, but on an immensely grander scale.

The Hundu on the other hand describe the seven chakras as a slippery emptiness, waiting and wanting to be filled. They don't form cores and each chakra has an action, position and pair of emotions that regulates it. Once understood and atoned for, the Chakra will open on it's own and begin spin, filling with the power of your spirit. Opening them isn't an either or thing either, but dependant instead on how thoroughly you embrace each of the activation conditions.

The root chakra sits just above the triangle tailbone and deals with sexuality and survival. It is blocked by fear and deprivation and opened by satisfying the human needs. Being free from injury, danger, hunger and such. It's a pretty simple chakra, though it does require you to be in contact with the ground. Opening it fills the area with neutral earth chi and is meditated on either while having sex or standing on one foot with the other drawn up to your tailbone and your hands clasped in prayer.

The Sacral chakra sits at the junction between the stomach and intestines and deals with pleasure and life. It is blocked by guilt and opened by any and everything that you enjoy. The hedonists spot, essentially. I think this is also why it's the primary Dantien for chinese methods. Your Dao is a driving goal of your entire life, the holy grail that you'll spend the rest of your existence seeking and seeking to understand more fully. If what you choose isn't something you enjoy, it will soon become so, as everyone ends up liking things they're good at. It also has the very curious distinction of being the Dantien most associated with pregnancy and new life. I'd say don't ask me why, but I suspect it's rather mechanical in this case as the womb expands to fill the space the energy pools during pregnancy. The primary element here is Water, which is cultivated in the horse stance and primarily Yin Natured. As a Dantien, it offers a balance between body reinforcement and energy manipulation techniques.

Next up is the solar plexus chakra. It rests just below the diagram and atop the liver. Rather than being the center of air chi however, it's the core of Yang natured fire chi in your body, something I suspect has a lot to do with the liver. Water then fire makes sense when the liver is the primary factory of chemical enzymes and acids in your body. But maybe I'm reading too much into the physical nature of things and not enough into the spiritual. The Solar plexus chakra is activated by focus and drive and blocked by shame. The more you accept the things you do and stop second guessing yourself, the faster and thicker the energy here spirals. Oddly though, the suggested pose for cultivation is to sit in a V with your legs raised to balance you and your hands extended to your knees. How this helps either breathing or digestion I've no idea, but I suspect it has something to do with the ability to maintain focus. It's a hard pose to hold for any length of time and the stone headed determination to do so would be about the right mindset for opening.

The Heart chakra is, well, in the heart, and fills with Air chi. This seems weird to me, as I'd expect water, or maybe fire, but as it seems to encompass all parts of the cardiovascular system, air works. This chakra's pose is also weird. Involving standing on one's knees and then leaning back to hold your ankles which makes breathing a little difficult. As a Dantien this one will get you the best possible results with body reinforcement. Logical, given the vascular network reaches every part of the body. It deals with love and is blocked by grief, two emotions that weigh heavily on the heart; something that anyone who has felt them can tell you with absolute certainty. It reminds me of the Speech from Bones by T. about suffering and wings.

...It also reminds me of that scene between Captain Kirk and Spock's Brother. 'I need my pain' indeed.

This chakra is likely going to be the one that gives me the most trouble out of the seven. It's a broader chakra than that of course, it's not just about romance, but also friends, family and in some cases, ideals. Men in particular can and even tend to fall in love with the idea of a group, movement, item or philosophy just as strongly as romantic love and be entirely devastated by its loss or failure. Women can too, but they're far more people or pet oriented.

The next chakra is the throat chakra and it sits right atop the cleft in your collar bone. Freed by truth and clogged by lies using this chakra allows you to literally speak reality into being like the christian concept of the Logos. It's got a strong Yang nature to it, keeping up with the alternating pattern but it has the most bizarre stance so far. You're supposed to stand on your shoulders with your feet in the air and your neck and arms used as a brace to keep you upright. I very much suspect the Iron Fist used this chakra somehow when he first translated for me after my arrival. I have a lot of vague ideas ranging from him actually learning the seven chakras to it being an effect of being bound to a dragon, for whom the throat chakra is important to breathing fire. I'm unsure how this one will react to me, given my propensity to use the truth to spin lies and tell stories to convey a more important truth.

The six chakra is the third eye. Where the throat chakra revolves around the lies we tell others and is Yang, the third eye is focused on the lies we tell ourselves and is Yin. Habit, intuition, Instinct, the subconscious, your lizard brain and most specifically the Pineal Gland. The third eye chakra deals heavily with dreams, self deception and empathy. Once opened by laying your illusions bare it allows for things like astral projection and prophesy or sight beyond sight. Pemberton notes that he himself stalled out here, but this is the classically recognizable chakra every normie is vaguely aware of through hollywood. Sitting in the indian style with hands on your knees chanting Oooommm... repeatedly. It's also the location of the Upper Dantien, making them 3 for 3 Yin natured by the chakra system. That strikes me as being important, though again, I cannot say precisely why. Using the third eye as a dantient though gives the user immense control over and recovery of chi.

Finally, there is the crown chakra. The last of the Yang chakra, it rests atop the corpus callosum, the bridge between the two hemispheres of the conscious brain. Commonly this is thought to be the most dangerous chakra, needing the user to divest themselves of earthly attachments. Not so. According to Pemberton, the crown chakra is opened by logic and an openness to experience. The earthly attachments you have to give up are your personal biases. If your logic is flawed or you deny new information through attachment to your previous thinking, this chakra becomes clogged and your thoughts muddled. Or in extreme cases, the seeds of insanity planted. This is the chakra of enlightenment, not apathy induced suicide, and the confusion comes from many of its users breaking through the barrier between the mundane world and the 7 cities of Heaven shortly after opening. Telepathy, the Akashic field and all of the kinesis abilities can be understood using this chakra.

As far as Pemberton has written, the two methods can be used in tandem, but there is, as of yet, no method for combining the two different philosophies into a cohesive whole. This, he theorizes, has a lot to do with the nature of the Dantien cores. A core represents the total amount of chi that can be present in a body at any one time without either spilling out or causing spontaneous combustion. This soft cap on power can be changed through various methods of condensing power and purifying the mind, body and spirit each one leading to the creation of a named Tier. But always, the core remains the same, representing the maximum amount of power your body can safely hold.

For the Englishman, these combined methods meant that even though he is at a lower tier than many of his nominal superiors, he is more or less inexhaustible in comparison.

For me, it was a research project. One of far too many in an ever growing list.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

August 1988

Translation of Pembertons' book is finished.

Finally.

Over a thousand pages of research and personal stories which have given me as much insight into S'ahra Sharn and The Hand as they have their methods of alchemy.

As it turns out, my early failure with the rat wasn't as bad as I thought. Cut the dose of poison by about 90% and prepare for some horrible shit. Evil violent mutations bent on killing everything around them are expected in the early stages and without some pretty advanced chemistry skipping steps simply isn't possible. This is mirrored in Formation Seals with the recipe for the Ink being 80% blood and 20% kiln roasted, and thus chi neutralized, corruption.

Without going into too many details, the corrupted plants, after they start cultivating, begin trying to purify themselves as well. Whether enzymes or spiritual essence, what they build up during that process is what you need to distil in order to render the corruption safe for wide scale use. Doing this over seven successive generations produces the most stable results the Undercity Sages have found so far, afterwards requiring a small input of corruption to keep the system balanced. Something that can be acquired by eating said corrupted herbs or demon beasts.

Controlling the specific mutations and their elemental properties comes after that and seems to be in large part where research stalled. There's an impressive and extensive amount of information on plant types and how local conditions affect the end product, but they never actually figured out how to control the process beyond where to plant or what sort of plant to fertilize.

With my barrier seal controlled greenhouse, I can do precisely that with minimal effort. The question really is; would doing that be worth it?

Sacred herbs in alchemy are chosen less for the physical matter of the plants themselves and their chemical properties and more for their spiritual aspects. I recently got the opportunity to tour one of the dragon sect's alchemy labs to watch them make the pills, as a reward for announcing a breakthrough. The alchemists use some really precise and complicated cooking methods, but in the end, their process reduces several pounds of plant matter on the low end into a pill the size and weight of a lemon drop. The amount of useful chemicals I could get out of those materials is closer to a cup of active ingredients, and I'm thoroughly amateur in any chemistry that doesn't involve unstable isotopes.

The spiritual weight of those pills on the other hand is nothing to be dismissive of. Over the last year, I've managed to clear out 16 of my 20 meridians. According to Li Hua, this is a speed she would expect from a disciple with a dedicated personal tutor. These pills though? One pill and a tenth my 'training' can clear a meridian in a day. Or two. Depends on your ability to control your chi.

Obviously this is magic, not chemistry. I should have fucking begged Yu-Ti to let me join his faction, but whats done is done. Maybe I can apply again later.

The next step up are pills to cleanse the body, bones, bone marrow, brain and various specific organs of corruption. Again, a single pill, and a single day will do as much as I accomplish in a month. And I'm GOOD. This level requires a relatively light mix of impure elements as opposed to pure chi. The reason for this is the same as the elemental alignment of the meridians and the organs they travel through. You've got to balance the power in the pill to the organ you want it to influence or the medicinal chi will simply flood your body rather than targeting a specific portion of it. This isn't a bad thing… but it's a massive waste of a pill and requires the consumer to have much finer control over themselves in order to use it effectively.

The third tier of pills are where the elemental nature of the plants used becomes important. These are pills meant to help you with your Dantien Core. Building it, recharging it, condensing the power within and otherwise breaking through boundaries. Filling your core with unaligned or pure chi is akin to watering down a beverage. For power you generate yourself, this is taken care of by your Dao path influencing your soul to produce power similar to your chosen law of reality. For power taken in from outside, a precise mix of elements is a must.

Finally, there is the fourth tier of pills. These pills just get freaking weird as they're better described as spells in a bottle. Changing your face, hair and eye color, height, gender, and even species are all possible at this level. And that's not even getting into the pills where the spell in a bottle is absolutely literal. Whether it's a pill that allows you to spit fire, perform a new technique until the effect runs out or graft said spell into your soul as though you'd trained it for decades, it's all possible.

Thing is… I still fully plan to ditch the valley in 11 years and take my business abroad. One thing all cultivators here agree on is that the spiritual power outside the valley is far far less dense than inside the seven heavens. That's after all, why they're the seven heavens. Without having that power around to draw on, all of these pills and alchemical principles are purely academic and the chance of making them is, at best, minimal and extremely difficult.

So the question becomes… Do I learn them for later? Or do I concentrate on churning out corruption pills in as high a quantity as I can for building myself a Chi farm after I leave? The less time and effort I devote to doing so, the more effort it will take for me to build up my own place of power once I leave. But the more I Learn before I leave, the more I can do with that power once it's built up.

The same question applies to the other aspects of my cultivation. Right now, I'm at 16 of 20 meridians. 22, with my plan to include the Vedic chakras in my system. The Meridians are obvious, above all other concerns. Each one opened adds 9 years onto my lifespan and 40% to my base strength and durability before active technique use. THOSE will be completed soon. But working on opening each of my chakra, building Dantien Cores, growing techniques, painting useful barrier formations, practicing alchemy or wrangling sacred beasts takes time. Time that could be better spent on one path or a few complementary paths instead of being divided across many.

What is worth doing? Is it better to be a jack of all trades because I want to go outside where I'll be stuck with the least of any of them? Or specializing hard on one so that maybe I'll be competitive with whichever marvel reality I find myself faced with once I get out?

Decisions, decisions… The mind is willing, but the body and spirit may not be able.

For now though, I have reports to write. Both of my nominal masters have been getting antsy and it's time to prove to them that I'm still worth keeping around. Over the last several days I've been seeing shadows with living eyes following me and The Crane Daughters were poking around openly before I announced my progress and got Yu-Ti to give me the alchemy tour.

For The Hand, my writings are all about the Greenhouse and the nature of the sealing techniques therein. I don't give them any of the patterns I've set up to defend myself from attack, no need to be foolish, but all of the utilities are there. I explain how they can adapt the building to working within their depths and how to get the foriegn elements, such as light, to spin up while hidden in a dank dark cave.

For K'un Lun, I tell them everything I've learned about alchemical corruption. How much to give plants and animals. How to build up the resistance essences and balance them against the corruption. My best guesses on ways to spread the effect over a wide area. The dosage differences I found between Rats, Mice and Bugs and what that will likely mean for larger animals. Pemberton's book helped there, but I've carefully kept the manuscript hidden from view, only bringing it out to scan new pages into my laptop since getting it. No need to offer easy proof of my status as a traitor; Priya's already gunning for me.

Both reports are, of course, already on my computer, which is where I did most of my editing as the knowledge and theories evolved.

When I'm finally done, hours later, I take both sets of papers, turn one and the book invisible, and leave my haven.

"Crane Daughter!?" I call out. "I know you're watching! Come out! I have a delivery!"

I resist the urge to jump as a hand curls spider-like over my shoulder. "Yun'ai." She introduced herself, whispering into my ear. "Your latest research report?" She asked. I had done this a few times already, but it was always a different 'daughter'.

I pulled the visible sheaf of parchment out from under my arm. "Yes. If you wouldn't mind delivering this to the Library. I'd like them to copy it for the relevant parties and then archive the original."

The woman took it, sauntering around in front of me and flipping through the papers quickly. "I'm not your little errand girl."

"Ah," I said, "but you ARE an errand girl." I countered. "And I prefer this to your sisters grabbing me by the scruff of the neck and flying off."

She smirks at me and fingers my neck for a moment before blowing me a kiss and leaving. Thankfully without me in tow. I watch her soar off through the city, dodging chi reinforced wood and ricepaper highrises. Then I sighed heavily. It was time to go see Tomoi.

I'll admit that I've been neglecting my relationship with the man. Rather than pestering him daily or weekly for insights while I help him with his work, I've come to him perhaps… once a month? And then mostly because I needed something made on special order. Twice we went out drinking, pursuant of his quest to pin down Brother Kuo's distillery. The man is a fox, I swear. Kuo, not Tomoi. While Tomoi only seems to be stellar at hiding his allegiances, Kuo is somehow able to vanish between the blink of an eye when he feels the needs of politeness have been met.

Shaking my head, I step into the craftsman's hall and wind my way between ringing forges to Tomoi's workspace. The man is there, in his usual spot, working on an oil lamp. Coating my hands in Fire and Metal chi, I pick up the cherry red metal and look it over.

"Put that down before you get fingerprints in the metal." I shrug and wipe my finger across the surface, chi smoothing out the offending marks. Tomoi snorts. "You've improved again" he grumbles "Lao teach you that?"

"Watching you, actually." I tell him honestly. "Abraham taught me how to fuse earth and fire so I could keep the glass malleable without needing to put it back in the forge. Apparently he had a hard time getting forge access before..."

"You blundered in and changed the entire nature of his work." Tomoi finished. "You have that effect on people. It's making you enemies."

I frown at him. "What! Why?" I asked. "Everyone I've worked with has benefitted!"

"You're making them look bad." Tomoi replied deadpan. "These are masters who have spent centuries or even millenia perfecting their arts. All they know, all their masters would teach them, all they could discover, they use and abuse to refine their Dao and their positions in the city. Then you come along and overturn the applecart. K'un Lun has three hundred thousand years of history, over five cycles of human civilization. They've always either known more than those who came here or the revelations outsiders brought were small. But this cycle is different. We're not in regular contact with the outside world; the last cataclysm saw many key masters cross the bridge of destiny without leaving disciples and things are changing faster than those left behind can keep up. That has made this cycle in particular have trouble accepting things from non-pilgrims, leading in a large part to why the wheel of reincarnation is so popular among new arrivals. An issue that further stifles the valley."

"But I'm more stubborn than that." I mutter. "I see." Then I pull my manuscript and Pemberton's book out of my robes and seemingly out of thin air.

He takes the bundle and quickly hides the book before studying the loose pages. "Actually, I was going to say you should be more grateful to Yu-Ti for his protection. I told you when we first started working together; I was expecting you to die. Repeatedly, in all likelihood, until you chose to use the wheel rather than stay here. There's a reason I haven't been doing the same thing as you and bringing the industrial revolution to the City. I've died in 'accidents' more often than I like to admit. Always when I tried to change things. Strength is power here, literally, and the city lord has taken a personal interest in your growth. That old bastard has held the city in an iron grip since before the last fall of humanity, so you can guess at the power he commands."

"How has he kept that power for so long?" I ask, interest piqued. In the comics, Yu-Ti gets assassinated by his son who seeks to take over the city. He succeeds… right up until Danny Rand returns home for payback. "According to the histories I've found in the library, anyone else who gets to his level crosses the bridge of destiny for the next realm."

"Yu-Ti's never been interested in that, that's how." Tomoi grunted sourly. "Also, he's the one who made the Iron Fist. Shou Lao was a refugee from the last cycle. Yu-Ti took an interest in his situation and their relationship has been the basis of K'un Lun's security ever since. Some of the older residents tell of times when the immortal city was invaded by different forces, human, alien and demonic. Several of those invasions destroyed the city. None have done so since the pair of them took the reins. That's but part of why your mission is so important."

They need a dragon and a powerhouse to replace the current set. Not just to overthrow, but also to secure their positions afterwards. I see. Layers. Always layers.

I nod slowly. Perhaps asking Yu-Ti for his favor more directly isn't such an unworkable proposition. "You can get those delivered?" I ask.

Tomoi nods. "I'll see to it. If all of this works, I can see you making friends rather than losing them in the near future."

I grin tightly. "When K'un Lun starts making enough pills for these enemies to get some, I still start making friends here too."

Tomoi just laughs at me. At, not with.


	4. Montage

December 1988

Success tastes like chicken. Creamy chicken soup with rice, to be specific.

I found out about a month ago that I can force the enlightenment of beasts and plants simply by feeding them an abundance of chi from my barrier formation cycles, which has proven a good method of gathering raw corruption, but that's not particularly feasible for large scale implementation. Kun Lun doesn't mind, and it's gotten me a lot of forbearance with Priya of all people, but it's no good for my purposes.

Finally though, I've gotten the dose down to an equation involving dose, chi density and bodyweight. This has brought me to the point where my corruption pills can reliably cause most plants an animals to start drawing in chi without also becoming twisted murder machines whose appearance comes straight out of cthulhu mythos. Instead, they take on a physical aspect of the chi they start drawing in like a vacuum. I thought the rats were bad when they became a mass of teeth, eyes and tentacles that moved like grease lightning, but try fighting a four foot tall rooster with feathers made of stone and crystal for their beak and claws or biting into a grape and finding yourself with a mouth full of napalm.

The taste is divine in both cases, for all the ancillary headaches.

My proof of concept was done on the 12th in an artificial rice paddy in my greenhouse. The resulting spirit rice was harvested on the 20th and contained strong elemental notes of light, wood, water and earth. Wood was 40% while the other three were 20% each, and Li Hua predicted that the balance would continue to push further toward wood had the rice been given more time to mature. The outer shell of the kernels gave credence to the 'wood' content but I've gotten pretty used to eating 'wild rice' since getting stranded.

White rice is an industrial process, one they simply don't do here.

This all worked to end with my receiving a christmas present. China, or at least ancient chinese cultivators, celebrate christmas too, to a point. For them, the winter solstice and its 3 days of night are an auspicious time for cultivating Yin energies and performing rituals that require a great deal of the dark feminine power. Visha for instance, the girl who explained the food offerings when I first awakened and who had joined the tiger sect in the same selection as me, was able to clear three meridians without cultivation pills during those three days of night.

For reference, in the last six months she's only cleared 2 of them. Fast for someone with no driving obsession, but dreadfully slow for a girl with a direct apprenticeship.

My present, quite amusingly, comes on the 25th, as the darkness ends. Li Hua, arrived to have breakfast in my glass shed and presented me with a piece of jade. It's a small piece, about the size of a nickel and a radiant shimmering green. Into its surface are lightly carved a series of runes I can barely make out individually, but look like knotwork art from more than a foot distant.

"While I appreciate the gift, elder tiger,.. what is this?" I ask her, gesturing with the hand holding the amulet.

She smiles around a bite of soup. "That is your new Library Token." She replies simply. "You have cleared body cleansing, meridian opening and if you continue to progress at this rate, you will likely be forming your core and discovering your Dao by the return of summer. But to get there, you need knowledge. That token will allow you access to the third floor of the Hall of Ancestral Knowledge, and once you've submitted your wisdom to the library and transcribed at least one other, you will have access to the second and fourth floors as well."

I nod, not even bothering to hold back a grin. "Do you have any suggestions, Beautiful Tiger?" Quickly, I slip the leather thong holding it around my neck and tuck the chip into my shirt, one of the few remaining.

"My first suggestion is not to use such familiarity outside this private space." She warns, sipping the plum wine I'd bought from Brother Kuo. "I like you… and Yu-Ti thinks you are amusing;.. but you are VERY junior to me and many here would kill you for the lack of face, not just among Priya's disciples."

Setting her drink down she continues. "As far as cultivation is concerned, Yu-Ti wants me to let you go in blind, and do your own research. He believes you have something heretical planned and is eager to see what you come up with." She fixes me with a gimlet eye, but says nothing further.

"Did he… tell you what it is he suspects?" I ask, slowly. She shakes her head, spooning out another bowel of my soup, somehow having finished the last while I wasn't looking. Carefully, I craft a response. "I've been talking to a few of the immigrants from Meru about their seven chakras. That may be what he's referring too."

She blinks surprised. "You're planning to forgo core formation?" She peers at me closely, eyes seeming to glow and I get the impression that she's literally looking through my body. "Hmm...perhaps thats for the best, your elements are a mess. You appear to be grabbing everything without integrating the energy."

I nod. "That is pretty much what I've been doing." I agree. "Identity and ownership dont seem to matter too much for what I need them to do. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but clearing corruption out of a meridian causes the left over energy to completely neutralize, and that's much faster and easier to claim."

She hums into her bowl as she drinks down the broth. "So long as you weren't using it for body cleansing or infusing I suppose that's fine." she replies, grudgingly. "Using raw elements to cleanse or infuse your body requires the proper elements for each organ and sinew in careful balance. To do otherwise would cause you to rapidly age rather than extend your life as would occur with chi you have properly claimed or chi from your own soul."

With that, she stands up. "You have work to do, and more to research. I expect to see you quite busy come planting season."

I snort and smile, standing up as well and taking her bowl. "As my tiger commands."

~! #$%^&*()_+

After Tiger's Beautiful Daughter leaves, I pack up the rest of my soup into a few ceramic tupperware I'd personally crafted between experiments and stow them in my backpack beside my trusty laptop. Leaving my greenhouse, I join the cities fliers as a demented sugar glider, soaring ever downwards on the light body technique. I steer myself with the white robes of the order, having finally broken down and started wearing them. What can I say? After a year, I've started to run out of my own stuff.

Landing several minutes later in front of the Hall of Venerable Ancestors, I proceed into the library and unzip the backpack. The scholars grin broadly as I begin handing out the sealed meals, but even as they begin inhaling the aroma, they're all business. They know the drill.

"What is it you want for these?" Naidan Bayar, 'resplendent guardian of the eternal library' asks me. The mongolian's a pompous little shit, but of the various scholar factions here, I consider his leadership to be the least onerous. He sees the library as his personal hoard; but when I ask him to do something for me, it gets done. None of that patronizing or obstructing stupid foreigner nonsense I go through with most of the others. It comes down to a quirk of mongol society, where giving them food and supplies is taken as a sign of submission and fealty. I give him something, food for the scholars under him and the biggest bowl personally, and he feels responsible for me as one of 'his pet merchants/scholars'. The only thing more impactful would be feeding his horse or saving his life.

I show him my chip from Li Hua. "I've been allowed access to the second, third and fourth layers of your hoard, Bayar Khan," I reply. "Any insights you could give me would be useful, in terms of avoiding repeat information."

He nods, and makes gestures to the others, who are waiting in him to start eating. "Are you looking for anything specific today?"

I nod. "Three things. I'm looking to form my core, so I'll be spending most of my time on the fourth floor. Also, I'd like any information you have on the Meru heaven and their method of chakra cultivation. Finally, my access is dependent on offering and transcribing my own experience into the third and second floors. Do you have any advice on what would be best to offer lay at your feet? My cultivation path was developed here, so the memories are unlikely to be particularly interested in that information."

He nods, massaging his thick spiky beard. "Among my horde, you have become known for your creative process. Write me a treatise on your works here and the method whereby you came to these revelations," he orders. "Chun Kao and Ngo Fa shall assist you in your perusal of the second floor. Go." He snaps his fingers twice, and the mentioned men pick up their bows and leave, giving me irritated looks.

I smirk in reply and offer them a gesture that translates to 'bon appetit'.

Naidan takes a bite of his soup and grins wolfishly. "A hearty dish! You are done with your divine monster research then?"

I nod. "A meal should be about the equivalent of a low grade elixir" I tell him, nodding, "but due to the nature of my research, it does come with a fair amount of corruption. Just remember to flush it out when you cultivate the power of the meal later."

He nods and the other gathered scholars begin digging in with gusto. "I shall remember that, scholar. Now, I shall escort you to your first trip up the stairway of glory!"

~! #$%^&*()_+

April 1989

In the end, forming a core turns out to be a simple matter of compression. Or as the chinese insist; refinement. Chi, when formed by your spirit acting directly on your body, is a plasma. More than energy, but less than matter. The first awakening, or enlightenment, condenses it to the density of a gas, allowing it enough presence to interact directly with matter in and outside your body. This is where the initial doubling in all your stats comes from.

At its simplest, forming a core requires you to continue compressing this energy further until it's a liquid which pools in your various chakra, and then choosing one of these chakra to compress it again into a crystal. This process is known as the Chi Condensation Phase in the hundred or so different variations of cultivation I've discovered since I began my research on level 4. The reason Dao philosophies sprang up around the effort is very straightforward. Like rain or snow, compressing chi from gas to liquid or crystal is significantly easier if you have a seed material around which it can form. As this is a mostly spiritual substance, this seed, almost naturally, is a thought.

An idea.

A philosophy.

And… just like snow… the properties your chi takes after this effort is heavily based on the shape of the seed material. Power, versatility and your growth curve are all determined thusly… as is the potential for rejection. If the idea you force your soul to coalles around is poorly suited to who you are, or worse antithetical, you could very well end up seeing your chi weaken, poison or even attack you rather than receiving legendary benefits.

It's not uncommon actually, for an ambitious, sly, overeager or simply stupid cultivator to choose the wrong thing. Because people most identify with ideas that they agree with rather than something they want to present yet are not, often this simply slows their growth and provides lackluster powers rather than being directly harmful. This causes them to stall out at a certain point, plateauing and being unable to progress further until they understand the problem and rework their foundation.

...It's also not exactly uncommon for prideful cultivators to stick stubbornly to their chosen path and instead cut away at themselves to more closely fit their choice.

There is good news though.

Not only do I not need to choose a dao, the earlier limit I'd worried myself about, where a core represented the full measure of chi in a body and capped how much it could handle was a misunderstanding on my part! Or perhaps the haphazard manner of my instruction. In either case, these are, neither of them, actual requirements! They are instead mechanical results, expectations based on simplicity and standardization! After all, like a machine, the fewer moving parts are involved, the sturdier it's design and less there is that can go wrong. When synchronizing one Dantien Core with who you are is difficult enough, what sort of fool would want to try and use more of them? Let alone seven?

The Hindu from Kashmir and Pakistan to Vietnam and New Zealand apparently.

And me, because I'm just 'that guy'.

In keeping with asian tendencies, once this method was deemed to be the more efficient path, they turned it into a math equation, refined it down with a perfectionists hand and then promptly forgot anything else had ever existed.

I suppose I fall to that trap too from time to time, as the point of my efforts since gaining access to the second and fourth floor of the hall has been to understand and summarize the entire cannon of cultivation in Kul Lun. What I've found so far can be stated thus.

1) Cultivators tend to be masochistic. The exception to this is when they are sadistic. Outside of external resources, every one of the variations on the basic steps from enlightenment to immortal ascension involves how you can advance by hurting yourself. External resources are occasionally mechanical, like meditation, alchemy and runes, but commonly are about how you can gather energy faster by hurting others. Not all references to "cultivation cauldrons" refer to metal or ceramic pots… often enough, they refer to other people.

2) The steps to cultivation always begin with Awakening and end with apotheosis, but every other step; be it in variation, order, repetition and even the number of steps you include; can be changed without preventing you from reaching immortality.

3) The steps are thus. Awakening. Body cleansing. Meridian opening. Body infusion. Chi condensation. Elemental alignment. Dao discovery. Core Formation. Higher energy conversion.

The order I just listed is the one most commonly used, and is generally referred to at the Nascent Soul path. The end goal of this path is that the core is meant to be used as a womb where the cultivator forms a secondary soul, built around their dao. Probably why the sacral pregnancy chakra is their preferred spot. This secondary soul will eventually hatch from the cultivator not unlike a chestburster alien, either upon full maturation of the nascent soul stage or upon the cultivators' death.

Regardless of when this happens, it for all intents and purposes makes the cultivator literally immortal. As in, a punch given or received from their perspective is measured in nuclear warheads, and resurrection from having their body destroyed is a simple effort of the Dao Soul gathering physical matter around it. For this reason, they form their core last so that it's as pure as possible, free from damage caused by tribulations, wholly dedicated to your Dao path around which it forms and as large as possible without tearing the users guts out.

The next most common one creates the core directly after enlightenment, naming a dozen different dantien quality stages based on which of the other steps you've gotten to. Each of these steps is represented by a 'bottleneck' where you have to fill your dantien to a new maximum before taking the next step. Chi condensation and chi gathering phases are repeated constantly in this method. This willingness to juggle the order of the steps is the reason there's such wide variation in popular fiction surrounding the methods and difficulties of core formation. Core bottlenecks happen because you form your core FIRST after awakening and do all of the other steps later, each step, or gradient of it, allowing you to build a larger or/and stronger core.

This category is further separated in two by the question of infusion vs tribulation. Infusers double their energy by having both a dantien core which acts as a refinery station, and infusing their flesh with the energy of the latest stage of power from their core. This acts pretty similarly to scientific principle where every 7 years, you've replaced 100 of the cells in your body. This is the method where chi poisoning is most common and has the most direct effect on your physical wellbeing, which makes choosing a personally suited cultivation **method **most important.

Tribulation cores choose their dao path almost immediately and have to readjust every time they take the next step in their cultivation. This causes their soul and chi to attack each other resulting in a backlash that makes it look as though nature is going berserk. Defying heaven, they call it. Completing your advancement in this method requires that you either adjust your understanding of The Dao with every power increase, bringing it closer to yourself, or that you burn away a piece of yourself which is out of alignment with your current Dao.

In either case, I group these two very different methods, and 100 others which are mostly variations on training methods, because their end point is in seeking and integrating higher forms of energy as a method of reaching immortality, as opposed to forming a new soul to essentially replace you.

These three supra paths may or may not account for everything the other 6 heavens do. Case in point, the Hindu and their infinite mountain. From the writings available to Kun Lun, the Asura, blue skinned many armed and sometimes animal faced immortals, don't even bother to cleanse their bodies of corruption, simply using their power to keep the free ick in constant motion with their ever increasing chakras.

As far as I can tell, the seven chakra get around the problem of having seven cores in their body by constantly cycling chi between themselves and their environment and in the case of Devya, body cleansing. As the power never really settles in their body, the cells ability to hold that energy isn't nearly so important as their ability to handle _**throughput**_.

Of course, this makes them even more vulnerable to the environment than chinese cultivators, though the raw power they can handle is a fair bit more impressive, as is their stamina.

Having reviewed all of this information and Ser Pemberton's notes on the other cities, I _think _I **might** have a solution.

My Dao, should I end up using one, shall be that of synergy.

Synergy is the conservation defying effect whereby two things that seem separate tend to, on further understanding, form a whole bigger than the sum of its parts. For example, Electromagnetic radiation. When you begin studying Magnetics, it seems pretty simple. A field effect that draws metal, specifically iron, to it. As you study it further though, you learn that the reason it draws in iron is because magnets are big iron crystals and electrons easily slip between the atoms of the metal crystal. This leads to the understanding that magnetics isn't just a field effect, it's intrinsically tied to the behavior of electrons. That means the seemingly discrete field of study, electricity, has synergy with the studies of magnetics and Iron. Go a bit further, and you learn that electromagnetics isn't just limited to iron; literally everything has its own magnetic frequency and so by studying another two fields, frequencies and metallurgy, you can create magnets for just about anything. Including light, as an extension of the particle wave theory you come across when learning about electromagnetism. Matter, magnetics, electricity and light are therefore all fundamentally connected through the principle of synergies.

And that's not even the end of it.

In short… it's all connected, and all of reality is built on a complex web of synergies. Contradictions exist because you haven't yet learned the synergy that built them, and are still trying to look at things from the singular perspective of a base material. Like the One True Dao, synergy allows me to encompass everything in a single word.

That this line of potential bullshit allows me to get away with being haphazard in my cultivation so long as I'm clever has absolutely nothing to do with it, promise.

It also fits my general approach to life's problems. Exclusive choices suck ass. No matter what it is, there always seems to be just as many drawbacks in any solution as there was in the problem requiring it. Usually, the only way to get ahead without hurting yourself is to pick some form of middle ground. Pursue multiple options people tell you are exclusive and do your best to use their benefits and drawbacks to cancel each other out. The end goal being to reduce the number of problems hanging around your neck with each solution, rather than treading water as most single options do, or god forbid, adding more. The method can't account for everything, but it does tend to help me make my own luck; current dimension aside.

My hope of course, is that this will allow me to synthesize a path from all paths. Japan's strength of self. China's internal alchemy. Indian Chakra. European hero worship. Marvel Madness. Those to whom I let slip an inkling of my plans call me power hungry, disrespecting the spiritual journey by trying to play fast and loose a la carte so that I ascend like a star. That I seek power for the sake of power and must be concealing the lust to dominate. Personally, I just see the time involved in normal cultivation methods and think 'moving like that, I am _**never**_ going to reach my son'.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

June 19th, 1989. The summer solstice. Three days of light. This period bears the same significance for men as the three days before Christmas have for women. The spring or fall equinox would probably be a better time to do this, but I missed the easter while I was researching core formation.

Gathering chakras is supposed to start with the Root chakra, which is neutral, and then proceed yin, yang, yin, yang, yin, yang; but I know from chinese cultivation that there's no compelling reason it needs to be this way. The official position is that power flows downward in the chakra, from the crown chakra to the Root, but I also know that each chakra is a vortex caused by Chi going both up and down. On top of that, I'm not a yin bias, so going neutral, then Yin would be potentially detrimental to me.

These are all rationalizations of course, but this is what I prepared for based on the information I had available.

The Manipura chakra is set in the solar plexus, as I said before, between the liver and the diaphragm. Activated by the mantra of Ram, cleared by confidence, blocked by shame and filled with fire. Aside from the Root chakra, that particular combination made this the easiest one to open. I had thought originally that it was meditated on in the Yoga boat pose, but Kalhara of the Mu Empire corrected me on that when I made the occasion to hunt the man down. There's an entire slow dance of Yoga poses you go through while repeating the mantra, and working on it with him this last month seems to have helped, even if I can't feel more than ambient chi swirling there yet.

I've set up on top of my roof, with a rug of the Manipura symbol, loaned to me by Kalhara, and a ten flag variation of the barrier formation I normally use to melt sand for glass blowing. The Mu himself is standing watch outside my circle, and will be maintaining the six essential oils and four gemstones in their incense burners atop the flags while I meditate for the next three days. I've paid him in the same fire corrupted rice I'll be eating for this exercise and he seems pretty happy with the arrangement. Finally, on top of the solstice, I've added a few scripts to pull up the chi that's been building in my workshop below for the last 13 months and burn it around me over the next three days.

Basically, I've stacked the deck here as hard as I can. If all goes well the next three days, I'm going to walk away with a fully realized Yang Fire core.

"Boy," Kalhara's voice interrupts my musings, "the sun is rising. It is time to begin."

I nod and stand up, taking the first position atop the rub. Each pose is supposed to be held for ten minutes, then slowly transitioned to the next over a period of 10 seconds. 30 different positions, 10 for each side of the triangle on the rug. Breathe in for five seconds, taking in all of the fire chi I could manage, breathe out for another five seconds uttering a single word that takes the whole 5 seconds to say: Ram. The entire sequence takes 15 minutes to go through. 4 times an hour for the next 64 hours until sundown on the third day.

Let's boogie.

Active meditation is probably one of the most useful skills I've learned since I began cultivating. The ability to just sort of zone when you're working on something is when I've always done my best work. Usually, I get there by listening to music, a podcast or audiobook, but since that lesson with Fitz, I'd figured out how to do that with cultivation. It started with using motion to get me into that zen state, but eventually I had managed to broaden the sorts of things I could do while also focusing on cultivation to just about anything but talking. For some reason, it's really hard to hold an intelligent conversation while my mind simultaneously explores the nature of my soul and how it relates the underpinnings of reality in the marvel universe.

Even so, that made what I was doing here and now just about perfect.

As the stretches and breathing brought me into the frame of reference needed to reach out to the world around me, I began cleaning house. Li Hua had been right when she told me back at christmas that my cultivation was a mess. I had so many different elements floating around in my system, it was a wonder they worked together at all rather than forming into something potentially dangerous, like elemental chaos. One by one, I released each of them into the halo of cycling fire chi until all I had left was my personal balance of Yin and Yang chi provided directly from my soul.

As the gathered elements sparked and smoldered in the ring of fire, I drew the burning essence back in to replace what was lost. It ran through my veins like a fine whiskey, all of the buzz and burn, but none of the dimming perceptions and loosening of higher brain function. Carefully, the burning power was guided to the proper chakra and there it began to spin. More and more chi flowed into the gap until I got the oddest feeling that I couldn't hold any more.

That was the signal to begin compressing it.

As I noted before, compressing chi takes a lot more energy if it doesn't have an idea to coalesce around. I had originally planned to count on that, thinking it would form a denser energy that would be more useful to me in the long run, but further research had put that idea to bed. Rather than pushing me further along core formation faster, it would instead lead me to much earlier bottlenecks. So instead, I'd set up this ritual. Everything I'd learned about the Manipura chakra went into the mental fingers enclosing the energy, applying pressure until it eventually began to form droplets of napalm in my chest. The entire mental space of gaseous fire chi becoming but a few droplets and relieving the bloated feeling I'd had before.

As more of the chi gathered in my barrier formation rushed in, pouring through my body like a fire hose, those droplets grew into a thin stream of unbroken liquid fire. Then a river and finally after what seemed like an eternity, a pool of liquid fire, spinning like clothes in a washing machine. I continued drawing in and compressing more until I got that full feeling once more.

Now came the tricky part.

Making liquid chi based on the fire element was expected of the Manipura. That was the entire point of the rituals I'd borrowed up till now. All of the liquid chi in my chakra held the identity of the Manipura. Now I had to add a second layer onto it, the crystal heart that would, ideally, form the base for all future efforts. Impressing the identity of Synergy into the center of the Manipura and compressing it further into a proper dantien core. I had hope that this would work, as the entire chakra system was built with synergy in mind. Seven layers of a spiritual journey each building upon the other, leading the Buddha's to nirvana. Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, Sound, void and thought. But this? Well, Pemberton had achieved it, so it wasn't entirely unprecedented, but he had done it over a period of 3 years. I was trying to do it in three days.

I pressed upon that conceptual connection between the two ideas and squeezed.

Throughout the effort thus far, I hadn't really felt any ill effects. Part of the bonus of integrating the essence of fire into your spirit is that it allows you to not suffer from heat related problems. But now, for the first time in almost 8 months, I began to feel feverish. Sweat sprang up across my body and the air became oppressive. Waves of head washed over my skin like gusty desert air wavering this way and that, undecided on what it wanted to do beyond filling every crack with hot powded misery that would turn to sticky mud as you began to sweat like a pig.

Gods, I hate Bahrain.

No! Random thoughts must not distract me here! Refocusing on the task at hand, I pushed the memories away and devoted the extra brain space to more completely managing the three concurrent ideas. Manipura, Synergy, coalescence. Simple in theory, but a lot harder than it sounds, even if you're a smart cookie.

As the whole map of what I intended to accomplish settled over the three separate trains of thought however, the searing white hot pain in my chest began to subside. With a shudder that ran through both my body and my soul, a tiny seed collapsed into existence in my mind's eye, taking with it nearly two thirds of the chi I'd been working with. It was tiny too, like a grain of sand where once there had been a grape.

It had worked though!

I hadn't exploded! Or spontaneously combusted! Well, maybe I had done the latter, thin flames appeared across my body whenever I worked with fire and earth chi in order to shape glass. But it had worked! A solid Dantien core, surrounded by liquid chakra! In jubilation, I reached out to the cycle and took everything! It flowed in rapidly condensing through both cycles until… suddenly… the draw dropped to fumes, as though there was nothing left.

That jarring sensation startled me awake and I stumbled in my repetition of the Yoga. The area around me was dark, the sky turning purple and most of the light came from the torches atop my flags. The sudden sound of a dozen people clapping caused me to lose balance entirely and I fell, arms and legs akimbo, my head banging solidly into what had to be a reinforced steel telephone pole. Groaning and rolling my head to the side, I saw that it was instead only my own barrier flag, now glowing slightly with its own radiance in the dark of twilight.

I didn't have long to contemplate it though, as Li Hua's face swam into my field of view, offering me a hand up. I took it, matching her brilliant smile with a goofy, if somewhat sheepish grin. "So, um… you were watching?"

She snorts and shakes her head. "We all were." She gestures around and I take in the other three elders, most of the leadership of the white tiger sect and lots of people in silk robes all of them embroidered with a green dragon in various sizes and locations. Kalhara was seated next to Yu-Ti himself, looking _**distinctly**_ uncomfortable.

"A most pleasing demonstration, tigers disciple" the ancient ruler proclaimed. "Moving straight through foundation establishment in three days to achieve a small high grade core is no small feat. I have questioned your accomplice thoroughly on your preparations and found myself impressed. When you recover, this event shall become a path manual on the fourth floor of the hall of ancestors. For now though, I shall allow you to make a request of the city. This generosity is not unlimited, but you may ask anything and heaven shall move at your words."

Two and a half years. 30 months and 21 days. That's all it took me to go from a middle aged civilian schmuck people debated killing out of hand to a core cultivator.

Granted, I used the summer solstice and most of the products of my experiments to get there; but what is the point of having resources if you don't abuse them to their fullest extent? What this means for me, is that I am now the lowest rank of important people. People Kun Lun actually gives a damn about.

Politically speaking, this means I have gained the respect of Priya and Lei Kung, and no longer need Yu-Ti's amusement at my antics to protect me from death. I still have to be polite and follow the rules, but those rules are a lot looser and not so prone to explosive reprisal by the city's protectors.

What to ask for though? "When next the pass opens, would heaven be willing to send out ambassadors to the mortal realm?" I ask carefully. "I cannot be the only man of worth in my generation, surely K'un Lun would benefit from finding more like myself?"

Priya snorts. "And I suppose you intend to be one of those ambassadors?"

I spread my hands in a 'what can you do' gesture. "They will need someone to help them navigate the modern world." I reply, reasonably. "Things are changing rapidly. Traditional ways of life speech and action are falling away as people forget why those traditions were important to begin with. Any effort would be far less effective without me."

Lei Kung shakes his head. "No. This is already being done by my disciples. Until The Hand have been removed from the mortal realm and their plans ended, a more public relationship cannot be countenanced. If you wish to become my disciple however, you can be allowed to leave."

"And lose such a potent researcher?" one of the jade dragon members asked, disgust clear in his voice. "Ridiculous."

Li Hua stepped up to me, hand on my shoulder. "The council will have to discuss this in a private session," She told me, not sounding apologetic. "Is there anything else you'd like, if this cannot be granted?"

I force down a scowl and the urge to shrug her hand off my shoulder. "Continued and expanded license to perform my experiments without fear of censure" I replied gruffly, fixing each Priya and "the ability to hand pick my own team of assistants and access to research materials from either the Jade Dragon sect or the fifth floor of the hall of ancestors."

"Only Freedom; not resources?" Yu-Ti asked, a laugh in his voice.

"Everything that is truly great and inspiring was created by the man who could labor in freedom" I reply. "A quote by the Sage Albert Einstein. I would appreciate full access to all resources, but I'm wary of the price." I gesture around me. "As I have proven, with freedom I can create my own resources."

Many in the crowd hiss in anger and disagreement, but Yu-ti laughs aloud and claps as though a young boy who's just seen his pet do a particularly amusing trick. "The caged bird may not sing, but neither can you build a windmill without wind. Is not synergy an element of balance? Do you not work for others to make your living?"

I nod. "Technically. But I left the Navy because they were overbearing, and enjoyed the reactor because I was allowed to do my job as I willed it; due to professional courtesy. Synergy may begin with balance, but it's principle is growth."

"A wild growth is a weed, useful to no one. It is through cultivation of our fields which crops are grown." The Jade Serpent countered, an amused smile on his lips.

I opened my mouth to verbally parry back, before shutting it. This is my chi hurting me again. I'm independent, sure, but he's offering me a personal favor and has repeatedly shown himself to act in good faith. My soul rebels against the idea, but in this case, I really should just bow. Consider this… payment for a job well done! Yes! Turning in a quest. I did the work, got the xp and now it's time for the loot.

This self delusion is going to hurt me when I get to the inner eye chakra; but not holding it is hurting me now.

Let's level up this bitch. "What was it you had in mind, August Jade Lord?"

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

May 1991

Working for Yu-Ti and the Jade Serpent sect is a lot like what I imagine 'working your way through college' is supposed to be. In the mornings, I work in my greenhouse or help various high ranking members build their own Chi cycles. In the afternoon I attend apprenticeships with various cultivators.

The Heavens Ascending Wheel Formation is the name they've given the arrangement of flags or laminated glass plates that spin up chi while I work on other things. Apparently they have their own similar formations based on terrain shaping feng shui. But while these work better than what I've created by an order of magnitude… they're rather hard to create, take up a lot of space and definitely aren't mobile. One example of these formations is the city itself. It's entire layout is built to feel power to Yu-Ti's winged tower at the center. And from there, the Divine Peach tree at it's top.

My classes, taught by various cultivators, are punishing. Without the increase in intelligence granted by my meridians and core formation, I'd almost certainly be unable to keep up with the pace. Scrivening (runecraft), Enchanting, Jewelcrafting, Glassblowing, Pottery, Masonry, Carpentry, Woodcrafting, Landscaping, Feng Shui, Spirit Farming, Beast Bonding, Leatherworking, Heavenly Gourmet Chef, Poisoner, Apothecary, Alchemist, Physician, Acupressure, Acupuncture, Moxibustion, Dancing (Terpsicore), Black Tiger Boxing, Southern Dragon Kung Fu, Weaponsmithing, Blacksmithing, Armorsmithing, Tailoring; the list is pretty exhausting.

The two fighting styles I'm pretty sure aren't so much so I learn to fight and defend myself as to punish me for my arrogance when Yu-Ti made his offer. This based on their teaching methods reminding me of the Ranma ½ manga and the sheer amount of pleasure they seem to take in utterly demolishing me every session. The medical classes, I believe, are Yu-Ti's personal touch so that they can't hurt me too badly. Without the crazy old mans protection, I'd probably be sent to respawn at the end of every lesson.

Screw them though, as otherwise I'm just about in heaven. An ironic statement, given as far as this marvel reality is concerned, I am actually physically in heaven. Still, it proves that synergies was a good choice for Dao. I'm learning at a rate I wouldn't have thought possible before; deciphering first principles in days rather than months and churning out new ideas almost as fast as I can write new journal entries. Half of them even pan out now! Which is better than my rate of 1 in 10 of the previous 3 years.

The real damper on my new situation is that I've stalled out on my chakra openings. The sacral chakra is blocked by guilt and the heart chakra by grief. While I managed to repeat my success with the solar plexus chakra on the root chakra, blocked by deprivation, on the following fall equinox, doing the same thing on christmas failed hard. I thought initially that I'd not managed it because I'd somehow failed at the setup, but when I formed my third core at the throat chakra, opened by truth and blocked by the lies we tell others, I succeeded easily.

If my method isn't flawed, then the only answer is the obvious one. I'm holding tightly to the memory of what got me here. How I failed to recognize the depth of my wifes insanity. How I didn't deal with it before she snapped. How afterwards, I didn't kill her when I had the chance. How I couldn't save my daughters. How I lost my son to a force of nature. How everything I do, and the frenetic energy with which I pursue it is so I don't have to think about it constantly. So I can atone for that error and eventually see it corrected.

Kalhara, Fitz and the hall of ancestors all insisted that chakras weren't an either-or… I'm supposed to be able to open any of them a crack just by releasing some of the related feelings and emotions. Enough to allow a flow between them. Either that wasn't enough to allow for liquid chi, never mind a core, or my informants were wrong; releasing just some of your problems wasn't enough. It would be disgustingly and depressingly ironic if in order to attain the power to retrieve my son, I would need to let go of my will to do so.

Another irritating part was that these gaps were the "proper" places for dantien cores. Maybe that was what I was missing? Only one core per dantien zone? Hmmm… If THAT was it, then that means I'll want to clear my third eye chakra rather than crown in order to maintain my 25/75 yin/yang balance.

Of course… that would mean I'll need to suss out my own self delusions.

Or abandon this chakra business entirely. But that runs into the wall of 3 dantien. The only path which included multiple cores was a tribulation path where by the second core I'd already be immortal. As I'm not an untouchable colossus among these mere mortal tier cultivators, that obviously can't be it.

I'm gonna need a second opinion.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

One of my favorite classes over the last year and a half has been Shìjiǔshī under Brother Koa. Translated literally, it means serve wine division and looks like seven or eight characters jumbled together to make a maze. Transliterated, it means he's an alchemist wizard who specializes in wine, beer and hard liquor. Finding a way into his private cash of wines has been something of a long term quest of mine, but it sort of fell by the wayside due to the monks alarming ability to vanish, even in an open field, when you didn't keep a close eye on him.

Unlike most of my… teachers, these last two years, Brother Koa came to me personally, rather than being sent by Yu-Ti to test my ability to cross pollinate disciplines. While my efforts at spirit farming had massively increased the amount of sacred herbs appearing up and down the slopes of K'un Lun (and the arms race between the Hand and Crane), Brother Koa had still had some not insignificant trouble getting resources for his own projects. In exchange for advancing the maturation and tailoring the elemental flavor of various crops for the brother, he agreed to not only teach me, but let me help him dispose of old stock.

Divine Wines, as I noted a few years ago, have uses other than allowing cultivators with our super enhanced livers to get rip roaring drunk. Depending on the recipe and level of fermentation, they're capable of the first three tiers of alchemical pills and elixirs. The fourth tier seems to be too complicated for most brews, but the brother has still developed things like the dragons breath bourbon and cherry blossom wine of limb regrowth. Say nothing of the rumored Peach Liqueur of Immortality Tomoi claimed he made for the elders themselves.

It should surprise no one that I used the stock in much the same way as the brother himself. Bribing useful people to do useful things for me. Ah for the days when a simple fish was enough…

After a couple of weeks of boozing up my 'betters' and asking pointed questions they wouldn't remember later, I found my way back into the depths of S'ahra Sharn. Ostensibly I was preparing another ritual site for my latest attempt to break through to a new level of cultivation, but in truth I'd gotten things ready in the cave beneath the city wells months ago. Instead, I had snuck out under a perfected version of my invisibility, one that even obscured body heat and chi senses, and gone to visit Fitz.

I'd had to bribe a few citizens to show me the way to the alchemist, but once there, the boisterous brit was more than willing to assist. For a bottle of the good stuff, naturally; though I suspect he would have agreed even if I hadn't offered.

He led me to a room deep in the bowels of the city and pulled out a set of seven bowls and various incense sticks. Setting the bowls in a septagram, he lit the incense sticks and invited me into the circle. I entered, he took one of my hands in both of his, and suddenly the world seemed to change. I could still see the stone room, but it was as though looking at a mirage. We were standing on a balcony built into the side of a mountain, who's slope was made of blue lapis stone and extended up and down into the distance.

"This, my boy, is astral projection. You need the third eye chakra to use it, and mine's not particularly well developed. So for as long as it lasts, welcome to Meru, the Infinite mountain." Fitz explained grinning toothily.

I looked at him oddly. "Weren't you banished from here?"

He shrugs. "Oh, Indubitably! But that doesn't mean I didn't leave allies in my wake! For this exercise we're looking for a particularly rebellious chap by the name of Dehaka. He and I have been… penpals of a sort, for the last century and a half. So you're not caught off guard, he's an asura. Skin like a ripe blueberry, four arms and a gorilla face. Massive chompers! Ready?" I nod, only a grin betraying my excitement. "Smashing!"

Somehow, Fitz and I walked and climbed across several walkways, stairs and ladders in a circuitous route worthy of a video game fetch quest level. Off the edge of the walkways people flew up and down the mountain in streams and patterns, their skin colors as varied as the elemental energies upon which they rode. Eventually we reached a particular door which looked like a beetle shell. Fitz knocked on it briefly and then walked through the door as though it weren't there.

I pause, tilting my head and staying in place, only to be dragged through the door moments later as Pemberton marched merrily forward. That was more what I expected when he said astral projection. Focusing a bit, I lifted off the ground and zoomed up to him, hovering just over and behind his shoulder.

The inside of the residence was decorated in a manner I can only describe as that of a hunting lodge run by a hoarder. Taxidermied animals, mounted animal heads and weapons of all types were piled atop one another in great drifts and dunes. All of them radiated chi at a level which threatened to choke my astral presence even despite my three cores; or perhaps because of them. It was, in short, a mess.

I reached out to touch one of the weapons and Fitz spoke back over his shoulder. "Wouldn't do that if I were you, chap. The toys they make here work on a conceptual level. As in, you touch them here because they cut you all the way back in undercity, not the other way around."

I withdrew my hand quickly and followed him a bit closer, ignoring his smirk. "What if I stole one? Would it appear in my pocket?" I ask him, slightly peeved.

He sniggers. "It very well could. Chances are though, it would be cursed. The sort of thing that would follow you around despite discarding or destroying it. We're here though," He gestures to another door that had what was very clearly a bear skin stretched over it and stapled on with nails. The door would open to bisect the bears face, giving it a weird 4 jawed alien look.

We proceeded through it and were greeted with the sound of rhythmic slapping. On a rather fluffy looking bed, what looked to be a blue skinned Goro from Mortal combat was busily screwing a girl, one leg over his shoulder, the other on the bed. 'Goro' looked over at us, and he indeed did have four very large fangs, which could be seen before he broke into a smile, but I wouldn't describe him as apeish.

"_**PEMBERTON!**_" the blue man Rumbled happily, accent somewhere between upper crust London and dragging cement slabs. "**Don't mind her, we're just working on our root chakras. What is it, friend? A new apprentice?**" The four-armed man with muscles like a greek god turned his burning green eyes on me.

"Something like that," I reply with a grin/wince combo as the pair on the bed shift into a new position without breaking stride.

"Naturally!" Pemberton answered in the same moment, beaming like a proud father. "My most talented one yet! Not even two years since his first lesson in what chi even was and he's already got three chakra open. What's more, he's got northern style crystal cores in each of them!"

That caused the pair to pause in their efforts, and turn to consider me closely. "**Hrmf… take a break, Chandra, I think we've taken care of that battle jitter tightening, anyway, continuing is just for mutual entertainment.**"

The girl, who looks mostly normal, except that she's alabaster white with golden eyes, pouts before popping up and kissing Dehaka deeply. "_I'll bring refreshments, and we can continue when the gnats have hopped off._" She replies in a voice that sounds like Irish brough and slaps me in the brain with the impression of wind chimes.

Fitz rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet as she leaves, turning to watch her go before snapping back to our host and asking. "Devya girlfriend, eh Haka ol chap? Naughty naughty. How long until the battle to 'retrieve her' happens?"

The Asura chuckled and smacked Fitz on the shoulder. The man obviously felt the blow, but looked pleased nonetheless. "**What brings you Fitz? What's his deal?**" He thrusts a chin at me.

"I'm having a bit of trouble with my chakra and came to Lord Pemberton for help." I reply. "He brought me to you, guru."

Dehaka looked to Fitz for confirmation, and he nodded, grinning broadly. "See, what you make of him, will you?" When Dehaka sighed as if put upon and nodded, Pemberton crowed in reply "Smashing!"

Dehaka bent down slightly and looked at my chest, his glowing eyes lighting up to shine like spotlights and a third eye opened out of unblemished skin on his brow. He went up and down my body, ignoring my attempts to explain and even silencing me as he conducted his examination.

"**Fascinating stuff.**" He rumbles eventually, leaning back.

"Can you tell what's wrong?" I ask him, hopeful, but warry. And annoyed.

He nods. "**You're trying to do too much without half of the materials.**" He replies bruskly. "**That second layer you're working on, you've got a bunch of concepts stuffed in there, things you intend to add in the future. That's fine, but without adding them, you can't build further. Right now they say Synergy of: and then note which one they are. Nippon spirit, Chinese Internal alchemy and Meru Chakra. It's like you're trying to build a house without siding material for the walls, utilities, furniture or roof; just the land, foundation and a frame. The next four cores simply won't form until you either start adding those other elements; these Avalonian imperative, Infinity stones, Lightforce and Marvel madness as you call it; or simplify the concept so that they aren't expected and you simply synergize everything you study.**"

It's as though a tension starts unwinding in my chest. Alright, so that's one fundamental hurdle down. But he didn't answer my original question. "What about the chakras themselves? Why won't they open? Are the… issues… I hold too weighty? Or is there something I'm missing?"

He snorts. "**I am not a priest. If you want someone to soothe your grief and forgive your shame, bribe Chandra when she returns and try not to die.**" He replies bluntly. "**If it's actual advice you're after, know this. You don't have to let go, to open the chakra; you need to stop lying to yourself about why you won't.**" He reaches out and flicks me in the brow, nearly bowling me over. "**Open this one, and you'll get what I mean.**" Then he laughs again. "**You imperials are an odd bunch. So full of self deceit, yet each one so loosely held and easily discarded. It's like you do it on purpose.**"

Pemberton claps his hands once. "A man is naught but the sum of his masks." He replies. "Thanks for your help! And just in time too, I'm beginning to feel rather w-" The scene cuts out and we're back in the cavern room filled with incense. "Oobly… oof." I go over to Fitz and help him up off the floor into a sitting position against the wall.

"You alright?" I ask him, concerned.

He nods, before clutching his head and moaning. "Yes, quite alright. Just took it a bit too far there. Did it help?"

I humm. "Maybe. I'll know when I get back to the circle I guess."

Fitz chuckles. "Bully! Now, help me up, I've got something to show you!" He first led me up seven levels to a small market where they butchered a metal furred rat the size of a cat and cooked it in front of us and then back down four and what I'd swear was halfway across the city into an open natural looking chamber. At the center of the cavern was an earthenware pot, but it was larger than any pot I'd ever seen, even since coming here. There are large kim-chi pots which three people can sit comfortably inside all throughout both cities. This pot was big enough to put a New York apartment inside.

"You have a habit of brushing off old ideas and giving them a new coat of paint." Pemberton stated as I looked at the pot in confusion.

"Happy to help." I reply, confused. "But beyond the obvious, what exactly am I looking at?" I asked, pulling out my phone and filming the pot as I walked around it. A ladder goes up to the lid of the gigantic jar and the pulley system is set up to lift and seal it. The entire jug is covered in obvious scriptwork, sunken into the surface of the jar, which I slowly deciphered as I walked, but there was a LOT of it.

"This nasty little artifact is called a Goo." Fitz offered, chuckling darkly. "Traditionally known as the Divine Poison Pot, smaller versions are normally employed by filling it with poisonous insects and letting them eat each other until only one is left. The process is of course imbued with chi, and that allows the bugs to absorb the properties of each other's venom. They are used in assassinations and as an antidote for the worst of poison based chi attacks. Larger versions like this are commonly used by the champions of Madam Gao, the Brides of spiders, in their training. Seal the girl inside with the nasty little pets she's been cultivating and use the pots functions to rapidly advance her own core as she struggles to survive them. Apparently though, nobody really thought to put multiple people inside until just recently."

He turns to me. "Cultivation cauldrons sometimes mean other people. Methods of stealing another's cultivation are not rare, but never have I seen the process so automated."

He pulls out a sheaf of papers and hands them to me. Taking them, I read, my heart sinking with every page. The first few pages are in Tomoi's hand, detailing the rituals I'd been setting up since that first time almost two years ago on the solstice. The next several are historical research by another on the Gǔ 蠱 and it's uses in the past, including schematics and various methods to induce cultivation up to and including core formation in another and then steal it through medicine, consensual sex, rape, combat techniques and murder. Finally, six pages about how to combine the two methods so that 9 people can sit inside the pot and have 8 of them give the 9th their progress. There were unfinished notes on what actions inside the pot produced the greatest results and how much energy could be spun up inside before the users entered without the pot exploding when disturbed.

"Thank you, Fitz." I tell him sincerely. "I can't imagine these were easy to obtain."

He grins too broadly. "They've been waiting for you to come, actually. They intend you to use this to improve the Black Skye activation process. That's page 13, I believe. Now, let's get you out of here. It really isn't safe for you to hang around."


	5. Peak

I got back to K'un-Lun without major incident. A pair of armies appeared suddenly as I was walking through one particular field of seed grass, but I managed to get out of the way with only one flying weapon and two fireballs clipping me by accident. If either side noticed (likely) they didn't pursue when I leapt into the air early superman style and landed well out of range of both sides.

After scanning, uploading and typing the new information into my computer, I headed down to cistern. I stared at my work for several hours, thinking about what I had learned. It seemed as though I was successful in kicking off the arms race I had proposed when I first got caught. I suppose that makes me a war profiteer, and for the most part I don't give a shit. I might even be excited! These people can endlessly resurrect for god's sake, and have made it clear endless war is their heaven after all.

But the Gǔ makes me wonder. What the hell am I doing, being the unarmed man in an arms race? Granted, Lord of War by Nick Cage was a favorite of mine and its wisdom that the cardinal rules of gun running are 1) NEVER Under Any Circumstances pick up a weapon and join the customers and 2) True safety comes in a reputation for neutrality. This bears out in a lot of real world situations too; keep your head down, and the alligator will eat you last… The agitators consider you cowed and the establishment consider you a beast their stable. The problem of course is whoever wins, they're still going to eat you; so it pays to have teeth.

I'm halfway there, just being a cultivator; my interactions with the Crane sect have gained an edge of genuine, if grudging, respect since I first formed my core. But I need more. An ankle holster of sorts.

...or back pocket nuke.

Ever since I got here, I can't stop hearing about the importance of dragons. Iron Fist this, Black Skye that; dragons and draconic power are the thing everybody covets even as they're utterly terrified of it. Of all the players in this game, I think only Yu-Ti isn't concerned about what might happen if something were to go wrong with Shou Lao or The Hand.

The question in this thread is; how do I go about getting myself some of that? Or something comparable? Orsen Randel and Danny Rand were able to hold the fist at the same time in the comics, that's how they defeated Ch'i-lin, predator of Immortal Weapons; but MCU insisted Shao Lao was a 1 man dragon, accepting no multiples. Given Tilda Swinton is the Ancient One, that suggests this is an MCU baseline universe of some sort; but If I could replace the current Iron Fist (unlikely, given this one's experience) …would I even want to? If I CAN hold it at the same time that still leaves me Junior to the problem people in K'un-Lun. If I have to steal it from the current Iron Fist, that just means they can steal it back, and my window to make use of it would be too small to be of real honest use. On top of that, in either case, this reality is clear that I'm promising my soul as a cultivation pill to the giant snake unless I can leave the universe before dying. Not really a good option.

The next possibility is Dragon Bone. Both comics and MCU agree that even a million years later, dragon bone is a serious concern. In the MCU, it retains enough power to temporarily grant a human the dragons regenerative powers, and in the comics, it was the source of a bunch of the more problematic artifacts the various Iron Fists were forced to deal with. Bone is commonly shaped into weapons, and Chinese Dragons commonly wear antlers, which mythology says are shed from time to time, just like the deer they resemble. Loose teeth, shed scales and broken claws are also an option, but those seem like they would be somewhat more difficult to obtain.

The last option is to take my last 6 years in this valley to become a complete and utter badass monster nobody wants to fuck with. Granted, I've been progressing like a prodigy, but I don't hold out much hope of that one being a viable option.

Heh… sad really, when facing down a dragon bearing a title like 'the undying' is a less daunting prospect than fighting my way out, should I find myself somewhere I cannot talk my way out.

Also, that sort of life puts a target on your back. I've already got several of those. Foreigner. Mortal. Resource. Asshole. Disruptive. Maybe if I add Thief or Iron Fist I can call myself the Sage of Six Paths?

They wouldn't get the joke. Not sure if that would make it funnier or steal the joy.

And I'm getting distracted.

Time to plan my acquisition of enough dragon bits to be useful.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%&^*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

The first step in my plan was fairly simple. I needed something with which to schmooze my problem children. As Silk was largely regarded as being worth its weight in gold around here, I started there.

Getting access to the silkworms was easier than it really should have been. While silk was a natural transition material and thus predisposed to channeling chi, in order to get the best possible results the dragon sect feeds them any chi laden plant material the alchemists don't use themselves. Their preferred feedstock is mulberry leaves, but as fallen leaves aren't any good and denuding the tree would harm it, they make do with castoffs and still face a bottleneck.

My research is responsible for removing that bottleneck. Or at least easing it noticeably. Magical plants are a lot more plentiful than is natural these last few years and so they felt they owed me. Coming to them with a jug of chi infused mulberry wine, a bushel of leaves from my own greenhouse and a proposition netted me six worms, four female, two male. They even instructed me in how to tell the difference between the squishy little monsters.

Once I got them back to my lab, I went through the equation for corruption and fed them corrupted leaves until they mutated. The grubs grew rapidly after that (this time fed pure leaves) from the size of my pinkie to about the size of my forearm by the time they grew no more. Then they started spinning.

Something a lot of people don't know about silk producing worms. The silk cocoon isn't actually a part of the chrysalis they mature inside. Instead, it's a sort of fibrous armor, insulation or maybe even a disguise. The actual chrysalis is the thing's skin, which hardens into a transparent but surprisingly durable shell as soon as their silk glands in their mouth are emptied. The resultant silk is rough and somewhat brittle, but silk farms solve this issue by tossing the gestating worms into a pot of boiling water. This firms up the worm the same way as crab meat and softens the silk. The heat is actually what makes it elastic and shiny. The silk is then unraveled from the cocoon and the worms eaten like chicken nuggets. The breeding stock of course is set aside to hatch from their shells and create the next generation of moths. Silk can still be collected from chewed open pupa, but it makes for much shorter threads.

I don't have the worms to waste though. Instead, I take this as an opportunity to work on my fine control. Namely, by levitating boiling water heated by my own fire chi to clean some thick paste off a flower without causing the petals to wilt. The effort takes me three weeks and a lot of chi-healing practice on my plants to get right. The cocoon of your average centimeter long Silkworm is a single one mile long thread. My worms are about 50 times as big, so when I'm done I'm able to tease nearly 14 thousand miles of high quality thread off my 6 50 centimeter long bugs. That may sound like a lot, but making a dress out of silk often requires 2000 cocoons. 1000 for a shirt or pants. Give or take a few hundred depending on designs. This doesn't even take into account embroidery. A truly mind boggling amount of thread goes into making a bolt of cloth.

Taking that to my next Tailoring class almost gets me murdered by a greedy shifu, but warning her that it's intended as a gift for the elders stays her hand. A small jar of cherry wine, a promise to mention her in a good light and a dress of her own if we have any silk left when we're done gets her to aid me in weaving the silk into cloth. By the time I get to leave four days later, all of the silk has been used and she and I have four shirts and three dresses woven and embroidered with precise measurements and I am in awe at her ability to control needle and thread telekinetically. I learned the method from her, of course, but the sheer difference in speed and dexterity between us is rather humbling. It's like the difference between hand sewing and a machine, something you really don't appreciate until you've done both.

The first dress I deliver to Priya, trying not to smirk as the heartless bitch seems to visibly soften when I hand her the pink silk, embroidered with a saffron bird. As soon as she'd done admiring it though, her expression hardens.

"Alright, what do you want?" She asks me bluntly.

I shrug and let loose my smirk. "You, off my back. Consider it a peace offering."

She makes a gesture and one of her 'daughters' pops out of nowhere. They begin whispering, no doubt telling her about what I did to get this fine garment. The mocha skinned tibetian woman's eyes widen considerably for a moment and I know I have her.

"Fine. You have proven your worth and loyalty to the city." She agrees haltingly. "My daughters could use the rest." She then narrows her eyes, considering. "Who is the shirt for?"

I shrug and hold back a smirk. Seems she only knows about the one I'm carrying. "It's a debate at the moment. I may use it to bribe your husband, or it may go to show my appreciation for the Iron Fist bringing me here all those years ago, rather than slaying me on sight as you say is his duty."

She nods stiffly. "Off with you then. You've used enough of my time."

Bitch. Even so, I don't feel the telltale hum of her 'daughters' following me as I leave. Maybe after today, I won't have to give them the slip when I want a little privacy.

Hmm… that may actually be bad for my stealth practice. Oh well.

Finding the Iron Fist isn't hard; after 130 years at the same job, dude was pretty predictable. Almost like an NPC, he would patrol between Yu-Ti's tower, Priya's red crane pagoda, the valley outside Shuo-Lao's cave and the portal that once every 15 years would connect Earth and Heaven for a period of 2 years, 2 months and 2 days. His duty was to protect that portal, acting as I.N.S. for souls migrating to K'un Lun via one of the other heavens or trying to emigrate from K'un-Lun to another heaven. When the portal opened to earth, he was to protect it against agents of The Hand trying to return and challenge everyone else to prove themselves as pilgrims.

Bai Wen, the current Iron fist in place of Orsen Randel, took the whole ascetic monk thing FAR too seriously in my humble opinion.

I found him meditating in the pass, floating about three feet off the ground in the seated lotus position. The aura around him was like a golden bonfire, scorching the rocks twenty feet away as he pulled in air chi to feed the flames.

I stood there for a few minutes, waiting for him to recognize that he had company. By the way his ear twitched every time I made a sound, I could tell he knew I was there, but he gave no response. Shortly, I got bored and called out to him, loud enough to be clearly heard by a normal person over the wind. More ear twitching.

Shrugging, I took a seat on a nearby rock. Close enough that everything was pleasantly warm, but not so close as to be burned even over time. Folding the shirt I'd had made for him, I laid it in my lap and pulled out my phone. I'd rather have my laptop if I was going to kill time, but it had become such a valuable artifact for me that the only time it would leave my secure vault was when I used it, or when left Heaven for good.

For the next three hours I powered the smartphone with my chi, played Angry Birds and cultivated. I could tell my presence was bothering the Fist, but he was doing that asian thing where he serenely ignored you until you stopped being unseemly.

Well, you know what they say about games. Two could play.

Thirtyseven hours later, Bai Wen was still going strong. I swear, this guy could give a cat a run for its money in the ability to project silent disdain. Why was I trying to get on this guy's good side again? Oh yeah, so the primary dude guarding a certain dragon doesn't get twitchy if I try to approach the giant snake. I'm halfway through another repetition of the Anja Yoga form for opening the third eye when he finally breaks.

"I fought the british in the opium wars before coming to K'un-Lun" he said matter-of-factly.

I dropped the mantra and slowly switched to the next pose. "And?"

I can feel his glare. "Losing to your kind, and seeking purpose, was how I arrived here. You are not welcome."

"Not sure what I have to do with that." I tell him calmly. "My ancestors were American. And before that, Irish."

"You say that as though I should know what it means," he dismissed. "Why are you here."

Stopping the pattern, I stretch, do a somersault and grab the silk shirt. "Here. A gift."

He snatched it out of my hand and began to throw it before stopping. "I don't want y… is this… Heavens Ascending Silk?"

I watched in amusement as he unfolded the shirt and stroked the slippery yellow material. He found the dragon embroidered on it's back, the same as the one seared into his chest. "I...th… The british came bearing gifts as well, silken words hiding swords and cannonfire" he challenged, glaring.

"You don't seem to be giving the shirt back," I note smugly.

His fists tighten in the material. "It is fine material and workmanship. Expertise is always worthy of respect." He bites out.

"Yes, It's yang attuned silk. The silkworms I corrupted were fed primarily on yang energy collected from sunlight. I'm trying to make them spirit beasts." I reply grinning broadly and crossing my arms. "I was wondering in particular what effect dragon fire would have on my research, but approaching The Undying One is a little dangerous on several fronts, so… you. If you refuse, then consider it thanks for not murdering me when I popped out of the rift. Priya loves to remind me how it was your job to do so."

"My job is to defend K'un lun from invaders and welcome pilgrims." He says formally. "Having passed me without my knowledge, you could have been a pilgrim." He gestures at my stomach. "Obviously that ended up being correct."

"After a fashion," I agree. "So. Dragon fire?"

He sighs heavily and his fists begin to glow like stars. The yellow white glow flows across the silk like light underwater and ethereal flames begin to waft off of it. "A near perfect alignment." he huffs, stripping off the saffron burlap that makes his upper robe and putting on the shirt. "At its simplest, dragon fire is a fusion of two chi concepts. Life and fire. This is different from using the two elements in tandem and is often called soul fire instead."

"Because it burns souls?" I ask. "As I understand it that is why the Iron Fist is K'un-Lun's ultimate weapon and protector."

He shakes his head. "No. A dragon's fire is itself a living sentient flame. Everything it burns feeds that flame, becoming more living fire. Destroy a dragon's body utterly, and so long as that fire is not extinguished it can reform itself from the nearest serpent. The Fire IS the Dragon. This is why it's so difficult to kill a dragon unless you are also a dragon. Or a Benu bird, a phoenix as Egypt convinced the rest of the world to call it. A Dragon or Benu may consume that flame, growing brighter and hotter. But mortal armies must wear down that flame by forcing the dragon to burn things that don't feed it and regenerate wounds until extinguished for the dragon to finally be slain."

"Was that the original purpose of the Iron Fist?" I ask, translating quickly for myself. "Were you proxies for dragons so that they might hunt others of their kind without risking their own fire or leaving their lair of treasures? And while we're on the subject, what is a dragon's treasure? I've heard lots of stories, but they change with every culture."

Bai Wen nods. "Yes. If a dragon's disciple failed against another Dragon or Benu, the Dragon only lost the fire invested in them, but if they succeeded, they could feed from afar with every success. Against dragons or anything else. Yu-Ti sanctified the process when he saved Shuo-Lao from the Skrull-Kree-Aesir war that ended the last age. Since then, there has only been Shuo Lao the Undying. As for treasure, anything that is touched by dragon fire and does NOT burn to ash is considered a treasure of the dragon's hoard. It becomes a Dao unto itself and burns like a coal in the great Braiser."

"So that shirt is going to become an artifact heirloom of the Iron Fists?" I ask grinning broadly.

The Iron Fist looked away, irritated. As far as information went, I had what I needed from the man. There was likely something I was missing, like why Dragon bone was important to inducing this process in mortals, but I had enough to start from. It also paired well with Phoenix Endsong comic where the Iron Fist was something capable of countering the phoenix force, despite never showing anything even remotely approaching that level of power beforehand. Materially though, I still needed him. Still needed Shuo-Lao. Creating my own dragon's fire would more than likely NOT be a simple process, so I would still need a bone weapon as a holdout pistol.

"So… have you ever fed Shuo Lao? Or does he subsist off the flame you generate as his Fist?"

"The Undying One subsists mostly off the Iron Fist, but on special occasions we are allowed back into the cave to feed the braiser directly. Something only a mortal can do without becoming part of the flame."

Also likely why Danny was able to defeat the Shuo-Lao by interposing himself between the flame and the body burning the symbol into his chest, while Davos faced him in direct combat and lost.

"A mortal like me?" I ask, wiggling my eyebrows. "I told you I was creating spirit beasts. If you came by my workshop from time to time, maybe a few of them could end up as snacks."

Bai Wen was silent for a while, staring at me. "You want to use the Great Dragon. How? And Why?"

I snorted in reply. "Hell yeah, I do. Why wouldn't I? In order to make myself safe from all of the politics I need to be seen as essential. As beyond reproach. Everything in this heaven leads back to him, some how and some way. Keeping the amusement of Yu-Ti is one thing, but If I can become the one who supplies the Iron Fist and Feeds the Dragon, none of the dead will dare mess with me and the three most powerful entities in this reality will be invested in my survival and happiness. From there, I can best use the resources in my reach to pull open the rift that delivered me here and retrieve my son."

"And so the circle closes," a new voice sounds from behind me "and it all comes back to the beginning."

Bai Wen bows slightly, his hands clasped in salute. "Honorable Shifu Lei Kung."

The Thunderer walks out from behind me, hand briefly on my shoulder before going over to Bai Wen. Fingering the man's new shirt, he circles around behind the Iron Fist to fix me with a hard look. "That's quite the ambitious plan." He says flatly.

"Is it one you disapprove of?" I ask, unable to keep the challenge out of my voice.

He shrugs. "That remains to be seen." He pulls my laptop computer out of nowhere and I stiffen, trying to figure out how he got it. More even, how he got it out of my greenhouse without causing a massive explosion. Then I notice the glint of a ring on his finger. It hummed with chi and when I reached out for it with my soul, it projected a feeling of deep and twisted space. It was an item of legend. An interspatial ring. An RPG inventory on your finger.

"Tell me, whose side are you on?" he asked, waving the artifact in his hand.

I flex my chi and the plastic case lights up with a seal before vanishing from his hands and appearing in my arms. "I am on MY side." I reply. "I don't see where that needs to be a zero sum game. When both sides benefit, I tend to benefit more."

"A sound philosophy," The Thunderer replies, smirking as he puts his hands behind his back. "But I ask again. Whose side is your side? K'un-lun? The Civilians? The Hand? You have the most curious habit of associating with many groups who are in opposition to each other, and it makes me wonder."

"I am not altogether on anybody's side," I tell him truthfully, "because nobody is altogether on my side. Everywhere I turn, people want to use me or kill me. So far, only non cultivators and Yu-Ti have ever helped me out of simple kindness, and then most of the time Yu-Ti did it because I was an amusing proxy for something else. But you know what? Fine. I can deal with that; so long as in the end I get what I want."

"Yes, your son." Lei Kung replies, seeming to soften for a moment. Probably thinking of his own son, Davos, now two years old. "I cannot help but notice certain parallels however. How can I be sure that this time will turn out different than before?"

"I like to think the results of my actions speak for themselves." I counter. "But if you can't trust that, then trust in being my best option."

The Thunderer seems to consider that for some time before nodding. "Our sages were able to probe the rift, and you do work yourself hard." He fixes me with his gaze. "I was once the disciple of a dragon and fought side by side with Bor Titansbane of the Aesir and the Mu Directorate of earth. When my dragon died in the conflict, I retired here. And when Yu-Ti saved Shuo-Lao from certain death and brought him here to recover, I stepped forward to teach the next disciple. I have taught every Iron Fist since then. If you want to approach the Dragon, you must train with me; something you have refused on multiple occasions."

He looked over at Bai Wen. "If you wish to aid him in his various games, that is for you to decide xué tú. But do not let him into Shao-Lao's valley unless he trains properly with one of us."

I close my eyes and breathe heavily through my nose. I want to rage at these assholes, but they have a point and I was the dipshit that revealed my hand simply to put someone off balance. "How do you intend to fit your lessons into the schedule Yu-Ti has given me?" I ask, seriously.

The Thunderer considers me for a moment. "I will take over both of your current combat classes. I feel you will appreciate that and I know Brother Yu-Ti will not mind."

I probably would, too; if his lessons were a little less 'training is a beat down' than they are right now. "I accept."

"Good. Your first lesson starts now. Fight Bai Wen so I can get an idea of how far you've actually progressed. Seeing you whipped like a dog every day for a year only displays your former teachers lack of discipline."

"One last question before we start?" I say looking at my new sparring partner.

Bai Wen sighs. "What is it now?"

"If the living flame is the true expression of a dragon… why are dragons symbols of water in most asian mythology?"

Lei Kung snorted. "A misunderstanding. More than half of the earth is water, and the biggest prey live within the seas. Naturally the biggest predators would follow them. A sea dragons water breath is still hot enough to cook a man in seconds and gives way to fire quickly."

"Now… FIGHT!"

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #%$^&*()_+

Training with the Thunderer was an experience. Rather than endless beatdowns or patterns, he would show me a move and then have me use it on him. When he was satisfied with my form, he would call out 10 random attacks or blocks we'd done before and I'd have to remember them and do them right. If I did it wrong he'd throw or knock me on my ass. If I did it right, he'd catch my attack or block. Either way, we'd move on to the next move and set of 10. I noticed fairly quickly, he called out anything where he swatted me around more often than those I got right.

Once I had all of the moves he wanted, he changed form, calling out random moves for five straight hours. During those hours, he went faster and faster until I started screwing up again. He would hold that speed until my form evened out and then he would up the ante again.

That continued for several weeks before he changed again. This time, it wasn't about speed, but power. He guided me in how to get the most force out of my body, and then the most force out of a given amount of chi. Then how to put more and more chi into an attack until I could exhaust myself entirely with a single strike. That the strike was able to imitate the Iron Fists more popular feat of turning a 15 foot section of wall into explosive shrapnel. I don't even care that the Fist can do that repeatedly, it left me grinning like an idiot for most of the day.

After he had me do that as the lesson of the day for several more days, he changed tactics again. This time, he had me spar with his other students. Mortal members of the Chaste who traded in and out of heaven every 15 years. For them, this was a cross between a reward for good service and the US military's College Advancement Courses. The point of this set of lessons was to teach ME how to hold my cultivators strength back against civilians; and to impress upon THEM the importance of their lessons in the more spiritual aspects of combat.

Being used as an example of how swiftly one could advance earned me a lot of enemies among the Chaste's exchange students. That changed to grudging respect when he told them that the cultivation resources they were getting were a result of my bullshit. For some, it even became awe when stories got around that I did it all without the pills or teachers; just library access.

While all of this was happening, I delivered the other silks. Yu-Ti took his blue shirt with it's green dragon and put it on his wall, the crazy old coot. Lei Kung took his black shirt with a saffron turtle embroidered into on the first day of lessons and laid it on a rock alongside his normal gi. He put it on without a word after a post lesson bath under a waterfall. Li Hua was the most visibly appreciative, kissing me on the cheek when I presented her white silk with with black tiger embroidered on it. All of the instructors become notably nicer afterwards, though the pace of their lessons increased.

Perhaps the most important outcome of the affair however, was that Bai Wen actually took to visiting me as I asked. Our first project together was the moths. With extreme care, we infused all six of them with dragon fire. Four of them died, despite our best efforts, but what we learned from each mistake was enough to save and succeed with one male and one female moth. The end result of this experiment looked vaguely like a faery dragon from World of Warcraft; save that it as white and fluffy.

.  . 

Sadly… they didn't last long. Like the moths they originated from, these silk drakes had no mouths and had to subsist entirely off the Chi I fed them. And I did feed them. Regularly. I swear! Shortly after their egg sack was woven however, they expired.

Here though, there was another relatively important difference. Two of them, in fact.

First, silk moths normally lay 200-500 eggs about the size of a bb. These eggs are lemon yellow and turn black if fertile, white if not. They will then only hatch after experiencing winter conditions. My moths lay 70 eggs, each about the size of a golf ball. Second, when the moths died, they turned to ash and all 70 eggs gained a golden inner light. Bai Wen said it felt similar enough to dragon fire he was able to pull it from the eggs at a touch.

I tried as well, in secret after he left, but got burned for my troubles. Pulling the fire out of the eggs required a predatory mindset to begin with, as none of the normal kinesthesia involved in cultivation seemed to work otherwise. After that, it felt like a mix of hot oil and worms moving through my meridians. Trying to imprint my personal fire over the eaten eggs living fire was the real problem however. Not only did it not gel with the core or liquid chakra I had there already, IT fed on MY chi leading me to almost destroy the greenhouse as I was forced to reject the chi or be replaced by it.

This was not the end to the frustration either. The eggs also required actual winter to mature and hatch, something I found out when the silk farmers 'put them in the refrigerator' trick failed to mature them. Weeks of building ice chi wasted.

At least the effort saved my greenhouse.

On the fall equinox, I went through tribulation atop my old mountain top. The one I used to cultivate before I built the greenhouse. Earth, Fire and Sound tore at the mountain top as I chiseled away at my three solid cores. I'd been examining my cores closely in the last several months and Dehaka had been correct. I went into my Dao of synergy with certain ideas about the things I wanted to synergize rather than focusing solely on the concept of synergy. This had made my cores rough and of uneven density, causing the liquid chi exchanged between them and my profound veins to be chaotic and inefficient, weighing down all my actions with chi and impeding my growth.

Two years of solidity made them fight my efforts to change and redefine them. The effort forced my will and chi to fight each other, resulting in large chunks of chi being broken off the core to suddenly and violently expand before being expelled in thoroughly energetic expressions of their associated element. As I began to gain headway though, my purified dao began to aid me in pushing the conversion of the rest. It made the chaos and elemental fury whipping around me fiercer still, straight up destroying the ritual I'd built into the mountain to fuel the process and recapture the wasted power, but by the time the sun rose on the fourth day, I'd finished.

The results were impressive. My chi was more potent, my mind moved faster and chi began spinning in my three Yin chakra; proving my previous efforts there had not been entirely in vain. The amounts were minute, and I'd need to work on them alot in the future to place a core there, but now it felt as though an invisible weight vest had lifted off my soul. Now, I knew I could do it.

For the next three months, I worked on those chakra, widening them with every issue I worked through. Of the three though, I'd have to say, the third eye chakra is the worst. Discarding self delusion is a painful process. Even more so than deliberately inviting fire (living or otherwise) into your body and crystalizing it. Most of it was admitting just how much I didn't actually know and how many assumptions I tend to make without checking them; normal everyday human foibles. Checking them against my now almost 50 years of experience and all of my education before confirming or discarding them widened the mental representation of space in my third eye dantient with every admission.

But then there were the little gems of wisdom that club you like a two by four straight to the face.

For instance; everybody likes to believe that they're the good guy. Even the cynical fucks who think humanity is doomed and pointless or do clearly evil things in the name of their "greater good" tend to think of themselves as heroes in their own heads. Turns out, I'm not. If anything; I'm the asshole real heroes deal with because it's necessary and they're not one of the villains. That doesn't sound like it should hurt. Intellectually saying it certainly doesn't. But like facing down someone in your mind and facing them down in reality, raw truth has a tendency to blindside you initially. Which… really, they sort of tell you on the label with this chakra.

The upside to having all of your comfortable illusions confronted and stripped away though, is that it makes grief and shame pretty difficult to hold onto. Knowing exactly what you did and did not understand, even in the back of your mind, when you screwed up all those times and just how much (or really, how little) you could have done then works wonders for your sense of clarity. Self loathing is just as much a lie as casual arrogance, in the end.

I also made a more scientific discovery when I went to form my third eye core on the solstice. Either the Yoga (and most of the ritual really) is psychosomatic; or the lore about the seven chakra being a downward series of pools and waterfalls is much more important than I'd originally figured. I spent the whole of Christmas working through the Anja, but the power kept flowing down to pool in my other two yin chakra, never allowing me to get to a sufficient power density to collapse into a solid.

Despite my trouble with Yin energy though, I was able to boost the Heart and Sacral chakras to about 20% of what I needed to initially form my original core and the third eye to 30% of the same with spinning liquid chi before the winter solstice ran out. Only 70% in 3 days rather than getting all the way there in 1, taking another to condense and having the third to build power. 4.25:1, better than the 6:1 I normally work with when cultivating Yin aspects.

That the chi in the lower two chakra made their conversion automatically without my input was also a surprise and worthy of note. More wasted effort in my previous attempts apparently. Or perhaps all the work I'd put into opening them in the first place mattered more than effort in the moment.

Gha! I hate this not knowing!

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%&^*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

January 1994; western New Years.

Aside from Nick, the food is probably the biggest thing I miss about modernity. Salt in particular. Something so simple and easily dismissed, but it has such an enormous effect on flavor. Too much is obviously disgusting, but even a teaspoon added to a pot of food will triple or quadruple the quality of the flavor. We do at least have a fair number of spices here. K'un Lun may be in the middle of bum-fuck-nowhere, but it was also situated along the silk road, which saw trade from Korea to the Ivory Coast and Moscow to Mumbay.

Most of the herbs and spices here were grown by the alchemists for medicinal purposes before I got here. Their feng shui chi gathering gardens didn't produce chi enhanced crops very often, but when they did what was grown was carefully preserved in the city's storehouses while the rest of it went to meals for the cities longer term residents. Mostly the Dragon sect, but on occasions like this one, their 'largess' got as far down as the civilians.

Of course, that' entire dynamic is different now. When a bit of sticky black fertilizer can force a plant to start cultivating in days rather than a few by chance each year, the purse strings loosen a bit. More crops are grown, the elites grow more snooty about the quality of what remains in the storehouses, and what can be offloaded on your lessers expands rapidly.

This of course, makes it hilarious when some of that trickles down to ME. I not only make my own herbs, but cultivate them to a higher quality than what the Dragon Sect nobles now covet, so receiving a small box of herbs with a single leaf of weakly yin empowered Ginseng with my allotment of rice and veggies almost gets me mugged when I burst out laughing like a madman.

Unfortunately, rejecting the distributor's 'gift' is impractical. Even if it has no use to me, it's a massive loss of Face for them. Yes, note the caps. Turning down a gift is a significantly greater crime than theft, bullying a junior or talking back to a superior, and each of those can start a blood feud if you don't have the right friends.

Luckily though, there is Brother Koa and spiced liquor is always in demand.

After several years of being one of his major suppliers, the cagey Monk has finally shown me his hidden distillery. After returning to my greenhouse for his latest order of chi-powered herbs, I give him the box alongside the purchase and begin to pursue his stockpile.

The jars, jugs, bottles and barrels in here are all inscribed to concentrate chi into the contents so finding the valuable items by magical synesthesia is all but impossible. That doesn't mean it's unorganized however. Like any good sommelier, Koa is meticulous about aging, ingredients and chi type. I make my way back to the last place I left off and continue taking notes as I have been all month.

Finally though, I have found it. The holy grail of this wine cellar. The Divine Peach Wine.

It's stored in a surprisingly drab green-white celadon jug without adornments. Other than being stored in the distillery itself rather than one of the many overflow cashes, there is no indication it's special until you open it. The moment you do though, the smell is unmistakable. That same smell permeates the entire city every year when a new peach flowers on the celestial tree.

I continue down the line, as though nothing special was discovered, but Brother Koa somehow knows better. He comes over with a small shot glass and a dipper, and spoons out a drink, putting it beneath his nose and inhaling the fumes slowly. "It's a remarkable vintage, isn't it?" He asks, rhetorically. "The body is made from 1000 year divine peaches that fall from the tree early rather than reaching maturity. This, admittedly, is most of them. But then, what else would you expect from a sacred herb where a single fruit can grant a mortal in poor health from bad living and disease at the end of their natural life span, youth, health and immortality? Just as with any cultivating plant or creature, there are mostly failures."

"Still,.. Even failures have their uses." The monk finished, downing the glass in one throw. "A single shot glass can completely purge a body of corruption and bring the drinker to chi condensation stage. The Jade Lord keeps this vintage close, drinking from it personally, and only rarely sharing. To receive a glass is to receive his personal favor. Of course, some of it is expected to go missing. Wine stewards privilege; I have to ensure the drinks quality after all."

"How useful would it be to one who's already passed chi condensation?" I ask, posing my question as a double entendre. The phrasing could just as easily be academic interest or dismissal as someone pleading for a glass. Kuo smiles, catching on to the wordplay.

"Pretty useful, I would think." He replies. "Even the best students are never perfect. Cleansing and infusion are often cyclical processes that take multiple lifetimes to complete. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which, may be because of a poor diet. Eating foods that have not been purged of their own corruption by cultivation, or foods that deliberately have high amounts of corruption in them." He smirks. "Of course, you already knew that. It is why you've been hunting me almost eight years after all, isn't it?"

I shrug, innocently. "Can't blame a guy for being curious. But suppose I were after this wine. What would it take for a glass or two to go missing? One wouldn't want to slight their seniors unnecessarily."

The monk chuckles. "You know that a sip is probably worth more than both of our lives, right?"

"I'm certain I have no idea what you mean." I tell him. "We were having an academic discussion about hypothetical events. I believe that's called philosophy."

"Well, in the interests of philosophy." Kuo replaced the lid on the peach wine. "An assistant could be trained for a couple of eggs, I imagine."

I look at him incredulously. "You want to make beer from bug eggs?" Dropping the act.

Brother Kuo shrugs. "Technically, it's called grog. As sailors over three ages of humanity have proven, you can make alcohol out of literally anything, so long as you have yeast. Usually though, the bug, or egg, is not used in the actual preparation of the drink, it is a pickled flavoring added later, like the wood types used in barrel matured drinks."

Twisting my neck until it cracks on its own, I shudder and nod. "Alright then. Two silk-dragon eggs?"

Kuo scoffs. "Two would hardly be enough to properly take advantage of this opportunity. Five."

"The eggs are almost as large as a chickens," I counter. "Unless you're planning to ruin several types of drinks, two will do."

"I do in fact plan just that." Kuo remarked. "Four eggs."

"Three eggs." I shoot back, shaking my head. "Bai Wen checks on them regularly. He'll ask where they went."

"In a good batch, one in ten eggs will turn white and die." Kuo insists. "In a bad batch, more than half of them fail to become a fertilized black. Four."

"Four," I agree to his reasoning "but for two shots of divine peach wine. An assistant requires much careful training."

The Monk hummed for a moment, closing his eyes and twisting his hands in consideration. "Done."

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Stealing my eggs turned out to be easier than I expected. Four of the eggs had turned white and another seven black, which made removing a bunch of them from the snow important. The ones closest to the dead white eggs were burning a much brighter gold than the others, which brought to mind the question of whether the eggs had died naturally from non-fertilization, or if the fetal worms were learning to predate on their fellows already.

I took two of those six brighter eggs, and one of each dead and successful eggs to brother Kuo. His smile nearly split his face, and he quickly spooned out two shots worth into another celadon jar, this one just large enough to hold the two shot glass portions.

"I would suggest drinking that during one of your rituals, or in a secluded chi shielded room." Kuo told me, as he carefully went through his inventory, selecting which drink to ferment the eggs in. As soon as he was done, I was quickly ushered out of the distillery, the door closed in my face.

Shaking my head, I stop off at the greenhouse and then head for the waterfalls. Lei Kung, the lunatic, uses the lower end of the waterfall to cultivate. Sitting atop the pool the icy water empties into, he cultivates the force of the falls pounding on his head and shoulders. The constantly moving water brings him a steady flow of chi above what anything short of a landscape based chi gathering formation could offer. Normal people on the other hand, sit beside the icy flow and cultivate on it's banks.

I access my root chakra core and manipulate the lakebed where the water empties into a platform two feet below the surface. Flattening it out, I carve the symbol for Svadhisthana into it and wade out into the current. Taking out six prepared barrier flags, I plant them in divots prepared for them and smile as they begin to rapidly syphon the chi flowing through the water, spinning it up to a nice torrent around a foot above the actual water. There is no Yoga this time. No special minerals or sacred oils. Just me, the waterfall, some rune work and a glass of INCREDIBLY potent peach wine.

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Anchoring myself to the rock with a small application of earth chi, I uncapped the bottle and took a sip. The moment the wine hit my tongue, my eyes bulged and chi began to flood my body like a torrent. I quickly recap it and place the jar on my head to steady myself. Chi billows off of me like a bonfire to the point it's even pushing away the thunderous power of the falls, but thankfully the flags capture it, spinning up all of the excess and waste like any other power. Thank god for runes.

Closing my eyes, I sink rapidly into meditation and begin to cultivate.

Chi condenses rapidly this time, ignoring my usual difficulty with Yin aspects entirely and condensing as though it were simply awaiting my permission. The Sacral chakra rapidly fills with liquid power holding the identity of Svadhisthana and when it's full, I begin applying pressure to it, willing it to condense around the purest form of synergy I can conceive of. My other three cores aid the effort and with a THUMP! the power collapses to 1/1000'th its previous liquid size.

There's still more chi though. A LOT of it.

Taking the hint, I rapidly refill the chakra with liquid chi. Like the other three, it refills to the point about half the space is filled with liquid power. Anything more, automatically condensed into solid power layering the core again and again like a pearl. I continue until the power billowing out of my guts finally eases, then start on the loose spirit whipping around me like snakes in a tornado.

Power flows into me like a river, washing impurities from my flesh, bones and organs until it fills my blood. Shifting my focus slightly outward I direct the corruption to pool as a worm in my arteries and then leak out through my abdominal aorta and into my stomach. Vomiting it later will be horrible, but better that than dealing with intense blood poisoning. Not for the first time, I offer a prayer of thanks to Yu-Ti for the medical lessons he dumped on me.

When the water core is almost the size of my fire core I try switching the end point of the draw to Anahata, the Heart chakra. It...works. After a fashion. The water power being gathered from the current flows straight down through the bottom of the air chakra and past my fire chakra, hissing a bit, before pooling into the Sacral water chakra. The leftover energy from drinking the wine though settles in easily. Grimacing slightly, I split my focus, putting mental effort into separating the power out into two different streams (three really) which flow into the appropriate chakras.

When the wine chi finally taps out, my heart chakra only is 80% full, but that's still quite a lot.

Stumbling to my feet, I take the jar off my head and quickly make my way out of the water and back to my greenhouse. When I'm there, I almost immediately vomit into one of my pots. The thick black liquid feels thicker than vomit and almost cohesive, like a slug. It bubbles and writhes with halfhearted attempts to form tentacles looping up almost a foot, but when I'm done I feel miles better. I haven't even done body infusion, but already I feel easily twice as strong, despite adding less than a third the raw energy I already possess.

Fucking hell this shit is powerful. I look at the wine as though it were a genies lamp. Endless power and riches held within, but a dangerous, deadly waste if handled wrong. I didn't even drink a quarter of it, and it was enough to build an entire mid sized core in an aspect of myself I'm not suited to. Almost as though the liquid itself were a solid core in motion.

That… That is power. I can much more easily understand how a single peach could grant immortality now.

I can also understand why Tomoi and the Hand want it. Fucking hell, if they got their hands on that tree… world conquest is a realistic goal for Alexandra, not merely a ridiculous comic book plot. I… may have made a very bad decision, by working with those clowns. Shaking my head, I console myself by reaffirming that the chains on my soul don't actually bind me to helping THEM. Just Electra. And any other Black Skye I happen to discover.

I transfer the corruption to a series of glass jars, simply for preservation purposes, and take stock. It's the middle of the night now. Not surprising, given we're in the depths of winter, but I had started somewhere before lunch time. Making a decision, I gather up a dozen flags and glide down to the civilian quarter. Dropping down the nearest well, I enter the cistern and set up the flags where I had previously tried to open Anja, the Third Eye. Sitting down in lotus position, I take another drink of wine.

This time, I'm ready for the explosion of power. I start cultivating it immediately, sending it to the third eye and heart in equal measure. The moment the pair of them are full, I compress the heart chakra. All four cores pulse as the fifth forms and I move onto the Third Eye. It compresses as well and I direct the rest of the chi in my body and what has blown out of my body while I stopped focusing on absorbing it.

The cores this time are smaller and different sizes when I run out of power, but I'm fine with that. The point isn't to make them all a uniform size. Not yet. For now, I just have to use my elixir as fast as possible, to advance as far as possible before anyone discovers what I've done.

Leaving the flags where they are, I pop out of the well like a weasel and return to my greenhouse. This time I gather all of the flags I have remaining. Technically, I should be using 1000 flags for this. The symbol for the Crown chakra has 1000 points and symbols; 20 rings of 50 petals, each with their own symbol around the central device. I probably don't have time for that. I need to get to the highest point of K'un Lun and chug the last shot of wine and just hope what I've set up is enough to handle the power.

Thankfully, the highest point in heaven ISN'T Yu-Ti's tower. That would be incredibly inconvenient. It is however a snow capped peak in clear view of the winged pillar. When I alight on the summit, it's noon once more and I use the power of water and wind to form the snow into a small amphitheater. Tall enough to hide myself and the 41 flags I have with me, but open to the heavens. I set the flags around me in prime numbers. 2, 3, 5, 7, 11 and 13 with myself at the center, the singular. This a more european conception of numbers of power than the asian I've been working with for the last 7 or 8 years but I've found it works for seal work more often than not. Probably something to do with Numerology which I'll learn when I hit Avalon, but for now it'll have to do.

Uncapping the jar I take a small sip and begin cultivating. Things start out fine and the excess power is caught by the first two flags. They shudder and shake as though blown around in a strong wind, but I'm already recondensing that power into my crown chakra. Saharava fills with liquid rapidly, far easier than the third eye and heart chakra, and the six extant synergy cores collapse it into a seventh core almost as a formality.

The moment that happens, power explodes out of me in a perfectly literal fashion, forming a pillar of light as it's caught in my runic barrier of chi collecting flags. They shudder and rattle as if in a strong wind as each one fills with a ring of light before overflowing and unleashing their excess on the next ring. Above me, the clear blue sky seems to flip from day to night in an expanding iris of stars as there's a qualitative change in the chi flowing through my body.

Chakra cultivation is dependent on the environment. More ambient power means more personal power. With the opening of the last chakra, as much chi as I can physically handle is trying to cycle itself up and down my spine. All seven cores churn like paddle wheels and my meridians widen as liquid chi roars through them, overflowing like irrigation canals in a hurricane. The energy in my cells rapidly increases until suddenly it's as though a black hole enters the outer orbit of my little constellation. The yawning maw of infinite hunger progresses steadily, darkening ring after ring, consuming all light and letting nothing escape until it reaches me. I stare up into the emptiness with wide unseeing eyes, or perhaps eyes that see so much I simply can't process it.

Then the darkness slaps me, full across the cheek and everything stops.


	6. Before the fall

Dragon advances 6

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January 1994

I wake up on a couch staring up at a vaguely familiar tiled ceiling. The room is cold, but not uncomfortable and my body feels like I've been pummeled all over by a mob.

"When Kuā Fù swallowed the sun, no river could quench his thirst and for his folly an empire died." Yu-Ti's voice sounded off to the side. "While this story is an allegory, the real Kuā Fù was a man much like yourself. He too combined multiple paths to heaven and as he tried to ascend to immortality, his death created the great Gobi desert. You came within moments of death last week as the chi flooding your body overran your ability to fuse with it. Even I required more than a day to perform that feat. When you are ready to move once more, I suggest thanking Bai Wen profusely. "

"I'm not dead then?" I ask him, croakily. Summoning an orb of water, I drink it before continuing. "How long was I out, Jade Lord?"

Yu-Ti chuckles. "No, you are still very much among the living, though it cost you most of the energy you gained. As for how long, you have been asleep for a week as your cores settled and your body healed the abuse. Congratulations by the way; one medium sized high grade core is enough of an accomplishment. Seven harmonic high grade small cores is a feat worthy of crafting a Jade Path Pilon. Perhaps in a century or two, you will even be one of our legends. Go now, nephew, there are others who await you."

I opened my mouth to ask what he meant by nephew, but by then, he was already gone. That only leaves me with the dictionary and a bit of context. In Chinese there are four different words that, in english, translate to nephew, and three of them sound the same, if you're not asian. It's an issue of which syllable is emphasized, and in this case, I'm pretty sure its a familiar honorific denoting affection rather than an acknowledgement of family ties. Sort of like saying junior or senior in the diminutive.

This is good for me because it either means he doesn't know about the peach wine, or finds my acquisition and use of it to be cute. Not the best place to be, but I'll take it.

Regardless of that, I need to see for myself how things stand. Closing my eyes, I start the meditative breathing exercise and sink into the awareness of self granted by first awakening. Seven stars of light now illuminate my inner self, each the size of a cherry pit, surrounded by about a grape's worth of liquid chi. The liquid of all seven spin slowly like a paddlewheel mill, sending chi up and down my body. There don't seem to be any eddies or major blockages, which is good.

The draw from this system is roughly 12 times as strong as flow coming off of my own soul, but this seems to be just the passive "sleeping" speed of my chakra's. I'll have to test how far this goes while active later, but my normal chinese cultivation draw started at twice as strong as my soul and eventually built to 20 times what I could do with mere focus in heaven. A few hundred times, when syphoning from prebuilt energy spirals.

There are some interesting differences, though… Previously, all of my meridians connected through my solar plexus core. It was the first one I made, and consistent with chinese writing on the subject, that was the only one the network would connect through. Now though, all 20 meridians flow in and out of each of the seven cores, not just the original core and 2 junction meridians of the Prime Vessel. Second, where my chi had originally been a sort of clear golden light consistent with my Yang focus, it was now a more… honeyd color and consistency. Closer to the lantern under the skin color displayed in Iron Fist's MCU TV show. Or the Soul Stone.

This was likely the qualitative change I felt earlier, before everything spiraled out of control and the black hole, Bai Wen apparently, saved me from exploding. I'll have to run some tests, but I think my chi is probably more potent now than it would otherwise normally be for my level of compression, infusion and capacity.

But I've stalled long enough. Time to face the dragon.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Bai Wen, it turns out, is in my greenhouse, rather than any of his normal haunts. While I was out, two of the black eggs hatched and he's playing with the result.

They're still worms, but these buggers have a noticeable scale pattern on their white squishy frames. Walking over to the Fist and his pets, I take one of them and finger the scales. They feel like hard plastic; just a little flexibility with sharp edges. They'll probably end up reflective too. I give the man his worm back and begin gathering leaves.

Thankfully, this is a greenhouse and we're in stock; else the worms would starve and Bai Wen would steal their fire.

"I understand I have you to thank for my continued mortality." I tell him as I work.

He grunts. "The Undying One demanded your presence." He said shortly. "He has been most displeased to be kept waiting."

I look over at him with a raised brow. "He's an immortal dragon. Who as I understand it has the expected hibernation habits. Why would he even notice the wait?"

"Idiot." The Iron Fist grumbles. "When he is awake, Shuo Lao has the same frame of reference as us. He is not a mountain, to blink an eye and miss the entire life of a mortal, he is a predator, who strikes between the beats of his prey's heart." He shakes his head. "This is irrelevant, The undying one has gained a taste for your moths, and after your foolishness, you as well. He wants to taste more of your chi and the chi of these… silk-drakes, as you call them."

I pause. Now isn't that worrying. I HAD wanted the dragons attention, but only after a fashion. Only enough to walk in, get some cast off scales or antlers if he did that, and then never return. The great snake having a 'taste for my chi' though, didn't factor into that. Anywhere. At all.

But… maybe it could? If it turned out I went suicidal Maito Gai every time I charged up the seven gates, er chakra,.. It might be good to have a hungry dragon nearby to bring me back down to ground state, as it were. Though, I'd feel much more comfortable if that hungry dragon worked through his intermediary. I've no intention of being literally eaten. That is a trope I fully intend to avoid.

"He will need to leave me several females and at least one male then." I warn. "You can't feed him all of them, no matter how much he cries for treats. Not until there is enough of them his appetite won't impact production."

"Do not treat the Undying One as though he were a pet." Bai Wen snaps.

I return to his side and begin feeding the worms leaves. "I've seen little pet shop of horrors, I have no intention of being fed to Shuo Lao." I tell him. "So if you don't want me to be rude, you'd better explain that 'he wants to eat your chi' thing to me carefully. Is it going to be like when you saved me, and he just vacuum's up all the chi coming off me? Or is the winged serpent going to try and bite my arm off in his eagerness?"

"Shuo Lao is not a quetzalcoatl," The Iron Fist responds waspishly. "He does not require daily sacrifices of hearts to sate his bloodlust. The Undying one is a Yinglong, wise as he is fierce! The most patient of the sapient wyrms!"

I met Bai Wen's eyes. "Sapient? Not merely sentient?"

He narrows his eyes, considering whether or not to be insulted, and scoffs. "Of course."

I hum. "If you can guarantee my safety, then I won't resist." I stop feeding the worms a steady stream of leaves and instead take them both from Bai Wen and put them in the basket. Attaching the latched top of the wicker device, I sling it over my shoulder and turn on him. "Well?"

He scowls. "I do not want you here. You are disruptive, heretical and nearly destroyed all of Heaven with your foolishness. Were I to have my way, you would be fed to Shuo Lao in your entirety, or granted your wish of exile the moment the portal opened… But my partner and my lord both have their demands. So yes, I will ensure your continued mortality. On my cultivation, I swear it. Until such a time as either of them come to their senses."

You poor boy, I think absently. This is the MCU, and you die when a plane falls on top of you, like the eastern witch in the wizard or Oz. "Times a wastin, then. Forward!"

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%&^*()_+

Shuo-Lao's cave is a fairly well known location. Far from being secret, it's protected primarily by the fact that the dragon inside will literally eat your immortal soul if you irritate him. No wheel of reincarnation, no respawn at the gate of heaven, no nirvana across the bridge of destiny. Just a spark of plasma in the raging bonfire that is a dragon's soul. You'd think a group of people with endless respawns available whose stated mission is to escape the eternal cycle of reincarnation would be less afraid of true death, but nope! If anything, they're MORE afraid of it.

There's probably some interesting going on there psychology, but that's not really my field. One of the things I had to admit for the third eye chakra was that two elective courses and reading a few textbooks does not make me a psychologist.

Well, maybe a really amature one.

Regardless, the big question I had as we approached Shuo Lao's cave was just what sort of dragon he was. Bai Wen had said Yinglong, but I don't really know what that means beyond the translation. The MCU hadn't said, beyond a pair of burning red eyes and Marvel comics had given no less than three completely different images. One of a Wyvern, one of a lindwyrm and another that looked like some kid had gotten ahold of a clay sculpture of a european dragon.

What came out of the cave was… a bit different than I expected, but probably something I should have guessed. The Tattoo is a bit of a giveaway, really. Shuo Lao was a eastern dragon, It had a long bronze scaled snakelike body with 8… comparatively tiny… limbs about the size of my own leg ending in four massive claws each. Yinglong; directly translated; means, a responsive dragon. Transliterated; it means Rain-god Dragon. Between the forward most set and second set of legs, were a pair of massive web and finger wings with only small shoulder attachments. The webbing between each of the 'fingers' sparkled with tiny scales, making the wings look like a cross between a bat and a butterfly.

With a different head, it could have been a winged serpent; but that face cemented it as an Asian dragon. The face was more dog than lizard, with a rumpled snout, big nose and clearly defined lips. The eyes (though they did glow red) were very human; as were the brows above them and the beard and hair that swept out around the aqualine fins around the head. Finally, the Antlers. Though there were branches and a great deal of curvature to them, they were more the wavy Kudu horns of african gazelle than deer antlers.

All this, I got to see as Shou Lao coiled around the pair of us like a gigantic snake, its four foot thick, hundred and twenty foot long body walling us in three layers deep, before twisting around the last 10 feet to look at us like a torso. I made to jump away almost the instant the Undying one burst out of the cavern, but Bai Wen grabbed my shoulder and held me in place.

"Bow," he hissed, as the great serpent leaned in close to look at the pair of us. Putting actions to words, he bent 45 degrees at the waist and neck, placing a closed fist against an open palm.

I just stared at the dragons face, marveling at the oddity inherent in asian dragons. The almost human quality it gave off for no easily definable reason. Bai Wen nearly panics as Shuo Lao snorts a cloud of smoke at the pair of us and speaks aloud.

The words are like nails on a chalkboard crossed with a rockfall, but in my head english words reverberate. "A Dragon, never bows."

I can't help it, I laugh. "Hungry?" I ask him in english and he nods.

"Provide the tribute, hatchling."

Bai Wen straightened, giving me the stink eye, and I opened up my basket. The worms inside had gobbled up most of the vegetation during our short walk and moved from being about the size of hotdogs to the thickness of pythons and as long as my arm. I tossed one of them up and Shuo Lao blasted it with fire midair before snapping it up and breathing the fireball back in through its nostrils. The second one disappeared much the same way.

"Not as satisfying as a hunt," the dragon rumbled "but better than the usual offerings." He looks down at us. "You please me, Hatchlings. Speak your prey."

Speak… your prey? Maybe, make your request? Not sure, but it makes the most sense.

"Do you shed your antlers?" I ask him, still in english. "I was hoping to make some weapons. A sword, a bow, some daggers. For the glory of K'un-Lun and the Iron fist, of course..."

Shuo-Lao snakes his face forward to examine me with his very human red eyes. Sniffing, he snorts smoke again. "A Dragon Advances. Stop running, little hatchling. Step boldly and sharpen your claws."

Bold, I can do. "If you don't mind," I reply, "that's why I'm here."

The serpent growls, slowly drawing back, and it takes me a moment to realize he's humming. "Meditate and Groom my scales. You may have the sheddings." He rumbles finally. With that pronouncement, the dragon's body ripples and he uncoils like a tape measure. In moments, he's spread across the length of the valley, sunning himself and pulling in an ungodly amount of chi.

As the wind begins to pick up rapidly and stones start to levitate on their own, the Iron Fist rounds on me. "Are you mad, Ang-Moh? I just promised to protect you and you immediately shame yourself in front of the Undying one? Are you TRYING to die? Are you TRYING to leave heaven vulnerable to the whims of The Hand?"

I shake my head, shouting over the now howling winds. "Not sure about you, but the big guys seem to like it!" Bai Wen growled loud enough to be heard over the storm winds and I grin. "Come on, let's groom a dragon! Those scales won't gather themselves!"

I could tell just looking at him that the Iron Fist was frustrated and wanted to hit me, but even he could see what an opportunity this was. So, we got to work.

Cultivating near Shuo Lao was, in a word, intense. His titanic spiritual presence drew in chi from almost a mile away and saturated the air where we were working. Opening up my seven chakras to spin like turbines and process that power led to me literally bleeding liquid chi out of my fingers as I had atop the peak. In this though, Shuo Lao came to the rescue. The extreme suction of his soul worked the same way trying to breathe in high winds does, stealing your breath away and forcing you to work for it. It didn't stop the overload, but it certainly tuned the whole process down to something I could begin to work on controlling.

On top of that, the grand wyrm drank in the liquid spiritual power I spilled as though it were moisturizer on cracked dry skin. Drinking it in made him start to vibrate, and I'd swear he was purring.

For my part, the state of being helped a lot with the one step I hadn't yet taken care of. Body infusion. Or Iron Body Preparation, as the library called it. This is different from the Iron Body technique in two ways. First, once completed, it's always on. Second… well, remember how I said cultivators are masochists? Most of the methods of preparing for special body constitutions involve using full body harm of some manner followed by overflowing your core to heal the damage all at once. This will gift the masoc… cultivator,.. with a measure of automatic damage protection, an extra layer of specific damage protection, occasionally a bonus to certain mystical affinities, and most importantly, allow you to restore your age to that of your prime, should you have gotten old learning how to cultivate in the first place.

The ordeal ends when your remaining chi returns to your core, further condensed from being a "copper core" to "Iron". Depending on how much suffering you willingly undergo, the increase in your chi capacity can be anywhere from 50% to 10 times what you had previously.

One of the crazier methods involved allowing yourself to be bitten by spirit beasts with acidic venom repeatedly while meditating. Because it wasn't immediately deadly, especially if you were building power, it was considered an acceptable method of toughening. The only upside to this sort of self torture is that the process would grant you troll-ish regeneration. No joke, so long as you had chi and your core didn't explode, you could regrow limbs or even your head without technically dying.

The OTHER primary method, as opposed to self harm, is the long methodical task of drawing strings of energy out of your core and meridians and tying them off to the nucleus of each individual cell. This method gives a low level version of every torturous special body constitution method out there, but as you can imagine, takes something like a decade for even a genius to pursue. Several centuries for most who follow it.

I tried to follow it at first, but even for me, that got to be mind numbing. Particularly when after a year I'd only gotten a few layers of cells deep around my meridians. I was GOING to simply continue plugging away at it for the remainder of my time here and after I left K'un-Lun; but with the damage I took opening my seventh chakra, and the assistance of Shuo-Lao here, I think maybe I can do something akin to an Iron Body focused around the ability to hold, channel and recover large amounts of energy.

Which leads us back to the dragon in the room. Or valley as it were.

Dragons, or at least this one, have scales somewhere between fish and lizards, rather than snakes. The difference, beyond what layer of the skin the plates grow out of, is mostly an issue of how they layer and how they molt. Lizards grow large plates that sit half under the skin and half fused on top of the next subdermal plate. These plates only cover places which don't need flexibility and flake off the top layers of each scale, as opposed to dropping the scale itself. With a fish, the scales grow from the lower dermal layer of the skin, but 90-95% of the scale is exposed to the water and just falls off when damaged. Snakes, the scales don't layer, and are fused to the skin across their entire length. When they come off, it's like peeling off a sunburn.

Shuo-Lao's scales were completely on top of the skin, but only half of their length was fused to the skin. Should one grow old and fall off, there wouldn't be a hole in the armor due to the long overlap, but they did fall off like fish scale, rather than flaking or peeling like a lizard or a snake. Those dead scales which were ready to fall off were a dull tarnished bronze color as opposed to the gleaming pates of the rest of the body. That was really useful for finding them, though each of these scales was about the size of my hand, did help. I have a pretty big hand.

Similarly were the scales on the wings. These were about the size of my thumbnail and just about as thick. There were a lot more of these ready to fall off than the larger scales, but I suppose that was to be expected. They weren't nearly as important to Shuo Lao's natural protections, and there were a hell of a lot more of them.

The task of actually grooming Shuo-Lao was an interesting one. In some cases, the scales more or less came off at a light tug. In others, the 'dead' armor needed to be carefully peeled away. On top of that, was the issue of cleaning the dragon himself. He wasn't about to simply let us take his scales, much of the surrounding area had to be cleaned as well, or he'd snap at us. It took a bit of doing, but eventually I managed to work out a synergy between chi from my throat, sacral and solar plexus chakra that created a hot water massage. The rapid vibrations of the hot water cleaned even stubborn grime off the 'living' scales, as well as loosening the 'dead' ones without causing pain or irritation.

Next we went over his hair. After washing it in much the same way, I had to create what I would have called a relatively coarse brush to carefully card and untangle the dragon's mane. The hairs were an interesting material all their own. They bent, hung and flowed about as easily as normal hair when on the dragon, but the moment any of them came loose, they became as stiff as steel wire. They were about as thick too, a full millimeter in diameter instead of the tenth to hundredth of a millimeter of human or animal hair. Apart from the usual issues untangling hair, this property provided its own challenges to deal with. It did come with the bonus of knowing which hairs we could take before we even really got around to collecting them, but it very much complicated the untangling process.

In the end, we ended up using our chi to force the hairs straight, and then removed them as we combed and cleaned the normal hair. For me, this involved empowering my hands with the iron fist technique and literally pulling them straight, like pulling metal wire through a grommet like back at the forge. For Bai Wen, we discovered it was as simple as applying dragon-chi to the hair. Light up those fists of his and the hair goes limp and can be pulled out easy peasy.

Well, comparatively, at least. It still needed to be untangled from the rats nest the dragon's hair had become in various places over the decades between grooming himself and burning the refuse.

What disappointed me though, was that there were no loose or broken claws or antlers to be had. Those were burned almost immediately upon being discarded, their chi reclaimed and substance reduced to ash.

In the end, Bai Wen and I walked away that night with twenty two large scales, 174 small ones and 318 hairs, forcibly straightened and then tied into a bundle. Bai Wen was nigh apoplectic when the snake told us if we weren't careful, he may come to expect grooming from "the hatchlings". Even demand it.

I laughed my head off at that. Bai Wen threatened to cut out my tongue.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

January - June 1994

Almost as soon as I returned to my workshop with the dragon materials, the big heads decided to stick their noses in. Li Hua, Yu Ti and a pair of elders from each of their respective temples walked in and began examining my haul. The problem with having special materials, it seemed, was that people expected you to do something special with them. I had fully intended to simply cut and weave them into weapons and armor for myself and the Iron Fists. But no,.. that was too simple. The Dragon had gifted me some of his own flesh and that demanded I take the next step in the journey of magical builders. Forging sacred artifacts.

Not that I disapproved, far from it, I'm happy to learn… I just wish they'd taught me earlier rather than holding back until they could butt in on something important.

The process of creating sacred artifacts is deceptively easy. Emphasis on the deceptive part. You don't need runescript, magic words or gestures, auspicious moments, materials or ritual; all you need to do is layer and compress chi into an object until it forms an artificial soul. Sounds simple right? Even after you get over freaking out about forming a soul and get down to the mechanics it's still deceptively straightforward. Just as you form a core by focusing on a Dao and compressing your chi, so goes forming a new soul… you just do it outside your body; in the object instead of yourself, and compress the chi throughout its entire length and breadth of the object rather than a central point.

The study of how this occurs in nature was the original discovery of cultivation after all. The process can be done by simply using the object in a consistent manner for a century or two in a spiritually dense environment. Assuming the object doesn't break down from age or misuse, you find yourself with a lot of mundane sacred artifacts, living buildings and Genus Loci such as the 7 heavens… and sacred trees. Doing it deliberately usually takes a couple of years, and the thing you need the sacred artifact to do, of course, informs the choice of Dao. Figure around a decade of the craftsman channeling chi through the object, meditating on the object's purpose and using it in the intended manner. This is practically a religious experience for sword artists and a central part of many of their paths.

The process can be accelerated however by treating the object like one would a path advancement and compressing liquid or even solid chi into the object as you build its purpose.

The advantage to forcing it is of course obvious, in that you get magic items fast. 9 months for a beginner, I'm told, but one month with the hands and resources of someone like Yu-Ti. I find the nine months timeline suspicious, but that's a matter for later investigation. The "disadvantage" of building the artifact soul rapidly like this is that despite having a soul, the artifact will not 'come alive', and will simply remain an object. Albeit an object with cool magical powers.

Personally though, I'm having a hard time counting that as a disadvantage. One one hand, a talking gun or sword that can move to aid its wielder in battle is fucking cool! It's most young boys' dreams! On the other, what happens if you lose its loyalty or for some alien reason it comes to hate people? Mythology around the world, but especially in east asia, is full of evil magical objects that hate their owners and leave a trail of devastation behind them.

I thought these were allegories for stupid people being unable to handle new things. In my own world, they probably are! Not here though; cursed artifacts are definitely a thing, and parasitic cursed artifacts the most common evolution of sacred artifacts made or traveling outside of heaven.

That in particular is the biggest drawback of artificial souls. An artificial soul can draw in chi, use it and potentially act autonomously… but if it was not formerly a living being, or built to be part of one; then for whatever reason, it cannot generate chi on its own. On a ley line, In heaven or in the hands of a cultivator, who cares? It probably won't take more than you can handle unless you're trying to star in your own anime. Away from a source of potent spiritual energy though… heheh… it may very well drain the user until they die and then attempt to steal their soul.

Successful soul stealing is uncommon, but if successful you get a win/loss scenario. On one hand, the artifact no longer needs to be parasitic! The Victim is an immortal magical artifact! Cool, right? On the other hand, 'I have no mouth, but I must scream'. You get a haunting, and that's no fun for anyone.

Except maybe a transhumanist; but I think even they might regret it after a little while.

Back to my project though.

Working the scales into something other than cool looking animal parts took some time. Chi enhanced epoxies and resins don't work very well with the Iron Fists chi, turning some of the more needed chemicals to ash, which mucked up the rest of the mixture. Also, even dead, the scales are tougher than nails as materials go. Tougher, because all of the nails, needles and drill bits I've been able to develop through use of metal chi break against the scales. This, despite them still being flexible and elastic.

…or at least, flexible under my level of strength. That's something I'm having trouble calculating these days.

Regardless; after a bit of experimenting, we found that the scales, much like the hair, become softer and flexible when exposed to the Dragon Chi of the Iron Fist. This of course meant that in addition to figuring out what we wanted to do with the material, either Bai Wen or Shuo-Lao had to be personally on hand in order for me to shape it for him. The dragon himself seemed smug about that fact, and abused it to set up a sort of chi-trading bargain with me. I cultivated in or near his cave with my seven chakra spinning, and let him nibble on my apparently extra tasty power. In return, he or Bai Wen would help me forge the part, build the artificial soul and he personally would teach me more about dragons and dragonfire.

The first thing I made was a set of armor inserts for the Iron Fists's yellow shirt. It was now double quilted drake-silk with dragon hair embroidery and slightly overlapping scale mail armor in between. Bai Wen can still be crushed by enough weight or impact, but neither blade nor bullet is going to pierce any of the son of a bitch's vital organs. The next item was a set of pants that did the same thing. Both of those were physically completed in the first two weeks after figuring out we couldn't shape them with any of my tools.

The next set of items were plate gauntlets and boots. All four of these packed hidden blades made of shaved dragon scale which could be deployed at a moments notice should the need arise and added another level of danger to the Iron Fists kickboxing style before he decided to light up. And if he did, well, the materials became a lot softer and channeled the dragons chi even better than his flesh did, so not only was no range of motion lost, but his blows became even more powerful as a result.

Shaping the new souls was... a bit harder. We both knew we wanted them to identify as armor for the protection of the Iron Fist line, but both The Fist and The Dragon were pretty bad at crafting souls on account of their unfortunate tendency to eat them when encountered. That and I personally had trouble manupilating dragonfire. For obvious reasons.

The real coup for me came when, after a lesson with the dragon, I found a broken claw embedded in a molten section of cave wall. Initially, the fused glassy rock around the prize refused to respond to my normal attempts to shift it with Earth chi or even heat up when hit with fire chi; but after a few trials, I shattered it with a synergy between my throat and root chakras, causing the super durable dragonfire hardened stone to vibrate into a thousand obsidian shards. It was in that way I came away with one of the deadliest weapons in heaven.

Or at least… this heaven.

In the TV show, the Hand required industrial diamond tipped saw blades to slowly chip their way through dragon bone that had lain dormant for thousands of years, so this claw remained wickedly sharp despite it's ordeal. Poking myself with it instantly drew blood despite my now immense durability and almost before I could draw my finger away, the claw had consumed almost all of the chi in my hand.

I looked at the fragment in wonder, as it glowed a soft molten gold and grew hot in my palm. It was… regrowing. Seriously, the freshly broken claw was itself regrowing in front of me as it burnt my stolen power. I watched it's snail slow but still visible pace as the nail extended from one inch with just a small nub of red in it, to almost two inches in length, almost afraid of the implications. If I fed this thing enough power, could I build my own Dragon? Just how bad an idea was it that I was even considering such a thing? And as letting it drain me seems all sorts of dumb, how much of a monster would I be for feeding it so many souls that it might recover? Because in the end, that's what chi was, and if it took from the living that quickly I would almost certainly snuff out the dead more often than I could pull it out on time.

Of course… that was more or less the point. Back pocket Nuke, remember? I'd come for a soul killing blade… and now I had one.

I ended up turning the claw into a bracelet, capping the end of the claw off with silver and a cheap leather thong. I added a few carved stones and other animal bones to it, to disguise the deadly artifact. It seemed to have worked too, which was a relief. The claw didn't seem to absorb chi from the air, my presence or even liquid chi dripped on it, but boy was it voracious when exposed to chi laden blood. Or perhaps just blood in general, given how it apparently worked for The Hand's leaders and champions.

Nobody noticed I was now wearing it though.

This sort of camouflage probably wouldn't hold up around the likes of Yu-Ti, or The Thunderer, but either Bai Wen didn't notice, or wasn't inclined to say anything. Which, given the Iron Fist was as prone to verbal vomit as I was, is saying something.

Shuo-lao noticed though, and he seemed amused. Specifically, I got the impression off of him that he was looking at a toddler, clumsily copying his father. This got me more 'words of wisdom' from the old snake.

The Dragon Advances. He does not bow, cower or retreat. He plunges ever forward toward his goals, twisting and turning perhaps, but never stopping. Never showing weakness, for weakness is death.  
The Dragon Consumes. Destruction is not done for its own sake. Gathering and hoarding are virtues. Everything is kindling to be carefully tended that the fire may steadily grow within you.  
The Dragon Conquers. Flames spread, and so too a dragon must ever strive to acquire more, until it has everything. Not merely regardless of opposition, but specifically because there is opposition.  
The Dragon Dances. Motion is life. A spirit at rest does not grow, nor does a body or a flame. Coals may smolder far longer than the fire that made them, but only when stirred and fed are they truly alive.  
The Dragon Endures. Everything burns. All attacks can be weathered when the attacks and attackers themselves can be used as fuel. And even if the attacks are too much, the greater the pile of ashes, the longer the fire can survive without sustenance, to reignite when fed once more.

Each of these lessons corresponded to the dragon's own dao. Or perhaps their chakra system. When Shuo Lao was explaining each of them, the winds generated by his chi gathering would shift and change. It was only after I remembered my trip with Fitz to the Indian heaven that I had the insight to turn my third eye chakra on him.

The third eye is an… interesting chakra. Up until I used it, I'd never really SEEN chi. Everything was a fuzzy sort of sixth sense, like closing your eyes and guessing the position of the sun or a fire from the warmth hitting your skin. The amber glow everything gave off while channeling the power barely even scratches the surface. SEEING chi through the third eye revealed an entirely new landscape, like an acid trip. An MC Escher painting, or Benedict Cumberbatch's awakening as doctor strange would probably be better comparisons, but even they don't really describe it well.

The entire valley is covered in a three dimensional web of energy that, while it interacts with the physical matter, doesn't really seem to have much to do with it. From high in the air, to deep in the earth, veins flow and pulse, meeting at junctions where the energy pools and swirls before moving on. All of it seems to move with an uneven rhythm, moving together as though part of the same system. Or maybe… the blood flow of a singular being.

Closer, or perhaps more accurately on a smaller scale, were the elements. Each thing the chi flowed through altered the elemental composition of the energy subtly, influencing its behavior and forming the metaphysical landscape, related but in opposition to the physical one. Watching that energy gave an impression of a distinct shape. Scratching that shape out in the dirt outside Shuo Lao's cave saw me writing in the Formation Barrier rune script. Further, any chi that flowed over the marks I had scratched into the dirt with my finger and chi would change to match the element my finger painting had described.

Looking back to the dragon himself allowed me to see all of these things again, superimposed over the serpent himself. Only Shuo-Lao, the truth of him, was not limited to his body. His chi was a gigantic bonfire complete with nine individual firestorms along his length. Dragons, unless I am mistaken, seem to have nine chakra, but only 12 meridians. 8 for the organs, and 4 for power storage.

This is my breakthrough.

I pull out the claw, and look between it, the basket I've been using to transport Shuo Lao's sheddings and silkworm treats and Shuo Lao himself. All this time I've been mucking around trying to feel out the elements and all I had to do was open my third eye chakra. It's almost painful to contemplate.

Scratching out a series of symbols into the dirt, I watch as the chi begins to pool and spiral. It's resisting Shuo-Lao's own cultivation and trying to ignite, but there's a problem. The symbols I've drawn are two dimensional. The shapes I'm seeing in the chi have three dimensions. At least. Scraping up a handful of mud, and mindful of the great serpent himself watching me intently, I use earth and water chi to shape the mud into what I'm seeing in the living flame. Then, I trade the water chi for my own fire, leaving behind only enough earth chi to hold the shape I want suspended.

Sparks.

"The Dragon, Advances." I startle as the Dragons growl sounds in my ear and drop the formation. It shatters into clods of flame dried mud on the ground and the small candle of living flame is sucked away into Shuo Lao's open mouth.

I had NOT noticed him getting that close!

"The shapes alone were not enough," The serpent hisses, sliding around behind me as he continues to talk. "Your own fire was what gave it life, hatchling. Now, do it again, and complete the journey you started when you first tried to steal MY fire."

I look up at him warily. "You're not mad about that?"

He snorts. "The silk bugs are delicious, and their fire is good for my mane. Advance, and be forgiven; hatchling. It has been a long time since I ruled a flight."

Carefully, I do as ordered. This time, I draw the chi patterns I see in the dragons fire in the air with chi from my solar plexus chakra. Glowing plasma shudders in the small cavern of Shuo-Lao's coils until suddenly his power balloons away like two magnets of the same polarity. From my chi a ball of fire, about the size of my fist is born. And I do mean born. It pulses like a heart and radiates a sense of undeniable vitality. Hungry, yet healing. Destructive and creative. A substance that bridged the gap between spirit, flesh and will.

"The flame of the beginning." Shuo Lao growls, looking down from above me. "The secret fire. Consume it, and become whole."

Oooooh boy.

I could feed it to the dragon… That'd probably stop him from eating me. I could also accept it. Forget the claw, this would be stronger and more poignant. It'd also be an amusing loophole in my oath. By protecting myself until The Hand leaders could return, I'd be fulfilling the conditions and protecting an artificial dragon affiliated with The Hand. Technically.

The problem was what happened last time I tried this. The fire tried to eat me. Would this be any different?

Extending my senses into it I'm surprised not to be rebuffed by the now familiar void of my chi being consumed. It… feels like me. But not me? Me outside of myself? As I continue to study it, my perspective begins to double and I lose control of my trance.

Shaking it off, I make a decision. This fire is already me, spiritually it won't harm me. Moving from my knees to sitting indian style, I breathe in deeply and start cycling. As the seven chakra spin, flooding my body with chi, I wait until my entire body begins to throb with overload and then pull the fire into myself. It settles into my solar plexus for a moment, and then, like a dam breaking, the fire floods my body.

The pain is purely physical and indescribable, but mentally and spiritually… I feel good. Like a muscle unclenching in a hot tub. I'm not being consumed spiritually, speaking, but rather undergoing another qualitative change in my power. My synergy cores feel more complete than before and the feeling of my soul that I get every time I dive deeply into cultivation doesn't fade as I come back to myself. My clothing seems to have been mostly burnt away though, leaving only the silk-drake shorts. My skin is smooth and clear, my joints don't even twinge and the white hair in my beard has faded back to red.

Closing my eyes and feeling within, I find that I'm no longer spending significant amounts of chi the aches, scars and inefficiencies of being 57 years old and suffering 10 years of rough living. They're all just...gone. I'm in tip top shape. More than that; my cells now act as a secondary storage bank for liquid chi, effectively giving me an 8th core to draw from and quasi-permanently activating the Iron Body technique. Which also means another core (or, well, pseudo-core) I need to fill every time I get low.

"Welcome to the Light, Fire-soul." Shuo-lao rumbles, smug satisfaction and greed rolling off his voice. "Now,.. prepare tribute."

I sigh. Of course. Greedy dragon helps me steal fire from heaven, now wants to chain me to a rock and peck out my liver. Fuck you, Prometheus.

Drawing a spark of fire from my solar plexus, I ignite my middle finger, offering the dragon a candle flame.

Shuo-lao radiates displeasure. "I said Tribute, juvenile; and you dare to present me scraps?!"

I chuckle briefly, both disappointed and relieved he didn't get the reference, and reply; "Teach me to fly." That said, I increase the size of the flame from a candle wick to a fist sized fireball.

The Dragon growls deep in it's throat and I increase the offering until he quiets down. It's now about the size of my head, representing a good 10% of that core's total power. Shou-lao hums, seeming to mull over my offering for several minutes before breathing in and ripping the miniature sun from my control. "A little thin…" he muses "and, lacking a certain… something... but acceptable. You will provide the same tribute daily! Fail, and I will consider our arrangement at an end. Now watch closely."

Tyrannical demands delivered, the dragon's power shifts and wisps of steam begin to form around the valley. The vapor gathers together forming honest to god clouds around each of the beasts claws and at strategic places where Shuo Lao then brushes against like a snake using a rock to move. Slowly, methodically, the celestial serpent uses these patches of mist to snake it's way into the air and hang there. Eeexactly like a chinese hanging scroll depicting dragon flight.

The pace and care he's putting into each action, I can only assume is for my benefit and I watch the clouds closely with my third eye chakra powered vision. Mimicking the pattern causes air, water and yang chakra to collect and swirl in the same place, forming a spongy mass that hangs in the air and moves at my command. Placing my hand atop it, it provides resistance, the Yang energy seeming to provide it enough form to do so… but not enough to lift my body. Glancing back at Shou-Lao, I figure out the problem. Sneaky snake is simultaneously using the Light Body technique. Which means that in order to fly on a cloud, I'll need to use it too. Not an advanced technique like in Dragon ball, but two complementary techniques at the same time.

Aaand I likely didn't notice before, because the dragon usually moves faster than a bullet.

But then… what is the point of his wings? I expand my cloud and climb onto it as the dragon radiates impatience and the question is answered. The wings light up with yang and wind chi, adding a third technique into the mix, and rockets around his little valley. He continues this for several moments before returning to stare at me. This is a very Yang heavy set of techniques, but given Yangs nature as a rising/lifting force, I suppose that makes sense. Though, I wonder if perhaps I could cut all of this out and just use raw Yang and sufficient will.

Something to work out later.

My movements are slow and shaky at first, but thank god for chi powered brain enhancements. Once I begin to get the hang of the two techniques and now freer 3d movement flying starts to become pretty fun! If you've gone skydiving, you probably know what I mean. Just, y'know, with less wind in your face from falling at terminal velocity. Figuring out how to add the third layer, the wind based speed boost, is harder, given I have no wings, but turning it into a sort of reverse wind-shield did the trick. Instead of creating a shell to push the air away, I separated the air in my path forming a slip stream. The required mental gymnastics for that made me fall several… well, ok, a lot of times before I got it right. Still, it's fun as shit when the threat of plowing face first into the ground only means you get your clothing dirty. Ah the blessings of finally getting a Special Body Constitution.

Several hours of playing around with my new abilities is draining though, and I'm forced to recharge several times. That leads to and exploration of the other advantages of my new "iron body". For starters, Meditating on the move no longer requires a trance-like state, an effect of being able to feel the state of my soul at all times. Next spinning all 7 chakra no longer threatens overload, everything burns as it passes up or down through my solar plexus and becomes identifiably mine in an instant, allowing it to convert almost effortlessly into a form I can use. Additionally, that instant assimilation means that controlling the power is much easier than it used to be, almost leaping to perform as intended. Lastly there are the three stereotypical bonuses of seeking a special constitution; I'm able to hold the Iron Body technique completely instinctually, if I have any chi to spare it automatically heals my wounds, and as I used a fire core I now appear to be practically immune to fire. The best bit though, is that the few wounds I do get appear to be on fire as they heal, and that's just cool as shit.

I end up offering Shou-Lao another tribute of fire before I leave, having generated it while seeing if I could still overload myself. The answer is no, and the treat mollified my new dragonic overlord. Made him downright smug, in fact. At a guess, that Aura I spied earlier has something to do with it. If he can hold chi that's not in his cores, veins or constitution, that could likely explain it. It's not something I've ever seen in the Hall of Ancestors though, so where to start… eh?

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

June 1994

The more things change, the more they remain the same. The moment I returned to my Greenhouse, I am greeted by Lei Kung.

"Congratulations on your path advancement, young Dragon." The man says, putting down a cup of Tea. "I expect you believe you have swallowed the moon, but you will find that was only the eggshell. Come, Li Hua has already agreed you are more fit for my temple than her own."

"Meaning no offense..." I reply slowly, "but wouldn't this normally get me into the Jade Dragon sect? I'm not a warrior; I'm a builder and recently achieved a major milestone in my mystic arts."

The Thunderer nods sagely. "Yes, you have independently rediscovered the initial steps of the Path of the Dragon. All shall bow in awe..." He huffs and takes another sip of his tea. "But for that, you will need to travel. And you will need to understand austerity, as most of the wonders you can learn in the Jade Serpent Sect will wither and become mundane outside of heaven. Most of all, you will need to learn to control your new strength, lest you expend yourself the moment you leave heaven, killing everyone you touch and wasting all of that progress."

"Only the first steps?" I ask, interested. "What are the next ones? Acquiring a serpent spirit beast to take the place of a nascent soul?"

He nods. "Additionally, Avalon's Path of Heroes. Or both of them could be exchanged for Xibulba's Path of Sacrifice. In either case, you will need the resources of the Chaste, and my people could benefit from your presence. Both as an instructor and as dumb muscle for our war effort."

I nod slowly, taking a seat opposite him, and biting into a strip of spirit beast jerky. "As interested as I am, why can't I just continue to train with The Undying One? He's already keen on taking advantage of me. I've also sworn to reopen the rift and fish out my son. Yu-Ti and his sages were able to look through it and see him, so wouldn't I be better served in his house, learning the same methods?"

The Thunderer shook his head. "Shou-Lao, for all his nobility, remains a greedy dragon. He is a poor teacher and will not give you power if he thinks you can use it to challenge him, only if he is certain he can maintain your subordination. Yu-Ti will be happy to have another Sage to gossip with and train in silly and esoteric fields of enlightenment, but even with your rate of learning the process will take a century, and you are simply not that patient. Finally, our Lord has told me of your oath to protect the Black Skies for Shou-Lao. You will need to collect that which we normally kill and for that, you need to be useful on and actively participate in missions for my order. This will be particularly important to you, as by becoming a fire soul, your body and your path are much more intertwined. Should you break that oath, not only will you lose your cultivation, there is a real chance you will become a walking husk as consequence of your choice of constitution."

Yu-Ti you sneaky bastard… That _was_ **technically** allowed under the terms I had sworn, but it was not a tactic I had expected from the Jade Serpent. Had I even told him about my oath? No, I hadn't. The only person who knows about it in the city should have been Tomoi and why would he rat me out? Whats more, why would he still be walking around if he had? The only thing I can figure without asking is the occasional reference to the Jade Serpent liking his games.

"Would that really happen?" I ask. "I thought the body didn't start replacing mass with energy until the immortal breakthroughs."

Lei Kung nods. "Normally that would be accurate. But you chose a constitution that accentuates your body's ability to handle large amounts of energy; working yourself to overload before being remade in fire of all elements. Worse, Dragonfire. I know you have been learning from Bai Wen about how the Dragon _**IS**__** the **__**fire**_, _not the **body**_? As you progress down this path, that will become increasingly true for you as well, making managing your chi essential to your health."

I frown. "But wouldn't that be the same for you? As an Iron fist older than the apocalypse? Who survived your own dragon?"

He grins over his tea. "And you see why I do not cross into the mortal realm with my sect students, despite still being fully alive and technically mortal."

I nod. "If you don't mind then… whats with cultivating under the waterfall?"

He laughs. "Mine was a seadragon who made his territory in the Okhotsk Sea. Those are rough waters. Water, force and fire are my elements. "

I nod. That made sense. I had been trying to figure out the connection between the waterfall and seemingly lightning based personal style for a while. If it was liquid fire though, that would make more sense. Thundering waves, which asians have long attributed to sea dragons.

"So, if I accepted the transfer, what would my new schedule be like? Would I still have time for my research? Or would you expect me to train all day?"

He finishes his tea. "Your lessons would move from weekly to daily. Mornings are spent in meditation, after running water up the mountain. I understand you care for your garden here" he gestured around the room "during that time. Unless you wished to aid your fellows in their cultivation, you would still have that time free. Afternoons are spent learning to fight with chi. Your lessons would need to be somewhat specialized towards holding back, but for you and the chosen, all would focus on control and fine usage."

I consider that, and earlier revelations during the conversation. Most of my work in the mornings involves building my stock of corruption pills. The actual gardening aspect is really a small amount of effort anymore. The benefits of building a greenhouse. Particularly a magically automated one. However, the only reward for good work; is more work, so the rate at which I've been able to grow my hidden hoard is glacial. Worse, I'm beginning to run out of sources of corruption. The more that's invested into the livestock, the environment, the growing popularity of runework and my stache, the less I have to work with going forward. I've been trying to use the chakra circles to allay that and reclaim my resources, but again, growing demand.

Combine that with Yu-Ti's apparent knowledge and tacit approval of my dealings with the opposition… maybe it's time to break out the Gu research and look toward applying it. For now though, I need to test the waters.

"I see. How… far do your students usually get in their cultivation?"

He smiles. "It is good you already think of your fellow students' welfare." Then he grimaces. "The chosen who the chaste send for training have usually awakened and cleared at least one meridian before arrival, but some, considered prodigies, are sent here to awaken. Commonly, one in five finish body cleansing by the time they leave, and one in three classes have a student complete core forming. This strength and longevity allows us to counter the Dragonborn member of The Hand, but their recruitment has exceeded ours of late."

He stops there, leaving unsaid, that anything I can do to help would be desperately appreciated. Even before Electra became the black skye, the chaste were struggling with a losing war. "I'll see what I can do." I tell him. "But I'll need leeway to interrupt your lessons and skip them from time to time for research."

"Explain to me what you need, and I will work your efforts into my lesson plans."

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #%$^&*()_+

1999

Researching the Gu is an interesting topic. Most of the runework and symbology on the pot is based on the ability to spiritually fuse two things together without destroying both of them, and then encouraging the base matter to rearrange itself to match the fused spirit. Only a small portion of that is actually useful in transferring chi from one subject to another. In the case of the Black Skye advancement chamber, there is a similar narrowing of focus, in this case an effort to accentuate the X factor in the black skye bloodline that turns humans into dragons rather than draconic ghouls.

Paring out all of the extraneous processes is excellent training in terms of my facility with runes and combining it with the chi gathering rituals has yielded fantastic results. As a consequence, I have found a method, in a chi dense environment, to rapidly force the advancement of a cultivator under my care. Not getting them around the hurdles of advancement bottlenecks, but moving them between them with the same, or greater, facility than elixirs.

Source of corruption material acquired. In spades.

Useful methods for doing shit outside of heaven… still pending.

The advancement of the chaste however led to me being "asked" by Yu-Ti to form a Jade Path Pillar on the fifth floor of the hall of ancestors. As part of this process, I got to sit with the mining sages and learn how to manipulate stone and metal to grow a jade pillar. Once that was done, I was further taught how to imprint my knowledge into it in a manner which others could access without corrupting it with their own thoughts, memories and ideas.

This combined with the Gu led me to my current project. Aside from the necessity of raising energy, the biggest problem with cultivation is breaking through. It's said that out of a class of 20, there's 1 who can learn through reading, 4 who will learn through observation, and the other 15 need to learn by peeing on the electric fence for themselves. The difficulty of teaching cultivation breakthroughs is similar. There's only so far you can get by reading philosophy, or even imitating a role model; in the end, most of advancement is done on your own. That's why it's called a path or journey.

But what if it didn't have to be?

Using what I learned from creating my path pillar and refining the Gu, I created a jade crown and went around K'un-Lun city and S'ahra Sharn, collecting the memories of first stage enlightenment in the Jade. I focus primarily on those who have recently awakened, the more recent the better, and philosophers on both sides who study the process, but beggars can't be choosers, so anyone who's willing to trade is a viable target.

With each memory I gather, I find another willing victim among K'un-Lun's civilian population. A lot of them don't cultivate, because for one reason or another, they deem it too hard. But when a shortcut is offered by the guy who gives you fish… I had plenty of volunteers. It took me several months to start showing results, but once rando-shen-nobody started awakening after a day meditating on the crown, the snowball began to roll. First it started with people coming up to me a month, weeks and then days later, having figured it out, and after almost a year, the collected insights began to allow random assholes to cross the border in only an hour.

I made an awful lot of 'friends' in the two cities as that success began to build.

Setting my followers up with Gu rituals to speed them toward the next bottleneck had me swimming in essence of corruption in short order and breathed new life into that portion of the economy. Jade serpent members began to apprentice themselves to me and my greenhouse became a proper workshop as several of them built me a house of my own. Shortly after, the greenhouse became a tower with seven levels. Yang at the top descending to, fire, air, water, earth, metal and Yin at the bottom.

Between feeding Shou-Lao, conducting my research, using and abusing my followers, training and training with the chaste, I barely got to use my house for more than five hours of sleep each night.

As my following grew, so too did demands on my time. This forced me to create several more crowns of enlightenment to keep up with followers experiencing and needing breakthroughs. Soon, keeping the models and memories updated between the crowns became a chore all on it's own. But I couldn't stop. First stage enlightenment, be one with self. Second stage enlightenment, be one with the world. Nippon spirit, through experience we grow and advance. Body cleansing. Meridian cleansing. Dao crystallization. Chakra opening. I needed it all.

It honestly came as a relief when at noon on september 23rd, 1999 the day of the autumnal equinox, Lei Kung announced the gate of heaven had opened and class was at an end.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Quietly I escape the feast and move into stealth. I have things to do, and not a lot of time to do it in.

Working on the crowns has given me a lot of access to the Jade Serpent sect and as part of that access came the knowledge of numerous inter-spatial-storage-rings. Learning how to make my own was sadly something I'd never had time to do, but I had gained enough favors over time to buy one. It was time to turn in those favors.

Making my way over to the Tigers sect feast, I quickly found my mark Quartermaster Mao Quan Yee. He was loathe to leave the celebrations, but respected me enough to believe that I wouldn't waste his time. Taking advantage of his hurried demeanor and a bribe of drakesilk, I got him to select a golden band embedded with a few carrots of imperial jade capable of folding a 30^3 foot volume nigh undetectably, cushioning and sorting it's contents and keeping an inventory in the mind of the bearer.

Once we parted ways, I went around the city collecting all of the crowns I'd scattered around both K'un Lun and S'ahra Sharn. Once done, I left each city with four, one for each sect, and headed to my workshop. Opening the hidden storage level, I packed away my laptop, the half a metric ton of corruption pills I'd squirreled away over the last several years, my personal library and one of every tool I had built over the last decade. You never knew what you'd need, and it paid to be prepared.

Essentials collected, I stowed the dragon claw, my entire wardrobe of drakesilk clothing and even, after some contemplation, the cloud wool fuuton Li Hua had gifted me on my last birthday. I considered roving the twin cities and stealing everything of value that might fit in my inventory, gamer style, but decided against it. Best not to tempt fate too much on my way out the door. I want to be able to come back after all. Getting my son and escaping 4 years before the mad titan kills half of all life among other goals. Instead, I fill the rest of the space with the food and pills I have access too.

When morning dawned the next day I marched out past a sour looking Bai Wen alongside 30 members of the Chaste with nobody seeming any the wiser.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

According to the chastes map, we emerged from K'un-Lun on the north face of the kuenlun mountain range in xinjiang province, china. Down the slope to the north lay the silk road and the _**VAST**_ Gobi Desert. Instead of proceeding down however, we circled around the peak and descended back into the sacred valley.

When not moving through a very specific crack in these particular snowy peaks, the valley is, for all intents and purposes, on another world entirely. Instead of the Lush green slopes I'd come to know quite intimately as a spirit farmer, we descended into the Qarqan River Valley Nuclear Testing Site. The ridge holding K'un-Lun city had a massive blackened chunk taken out of it, almost as if godzilla had taken a bite out of the mountain, and the valleys leading down to the river were a mix of grey and brown. It wasn't complete desolation, but the chinese hadn't left much up to chance.

"You see now, Brother, why we cannot allow outsiders to know of the heavenly city?" One of the Chaste, Jacob Park asked me.

I choke out a dark laugh. "That's communism for you."

Jacob gave me an odd look. "No, this is chinese cultural revolution."

"Isn't that the same thing?"

It's his turn to laugh bitterly. "No. The Chinese, Koreans and even Japanese do this every time a Dynasty ends and is replaced. Holy sites, art, history, everything that is not vigorously defended is torn down so that history can begin anew. That is why staying hidden and protecting the Jade Lord from The Hand are so important. Without them, even heaven would fall."

With those cheery words, we descend into hell.

The Qarqan river flows west down the valley and through another bombed out hole, representing S'ahra Sharn, and then down the outside of the Kuenlun range. Once it reaches ground level, it turns north, flowing through the region's farmland. Eventually, we make our way to the nearest city, Qiemo, and rent out most of two hotels for the night.

The group will be breaking up tomorrow to avoid showing up on the CCP's radar as "suspicious group traveling near a proscribed location at an auspicious time", so rather than sleeping, I stay up late and meditate on the local chi.

Qeimo is near enough to a ley line that it offers a good gradient for what I can expect outside of heaven. Where inside K'un Lun, my aligned chakra's could offer me 40 times the draw of my rather powerful soul, out here on the line, I'm getting maybe three times the draw. Two and a half to be safe. If the density ratio continued when off the line, I would probably be able to scrape together one fifth of the power my soul provided by having all seven of them open. Maybe as low as a tenth if I was unlucky.

I was busily in the middle of calculating my technique costs and probable recharge times when I was interrupted.

In the middle of my room, a swirling emerald light appeared. It seemed to be trying to form a shape, but like a TV with a bad signal on in some movie, it couldn't quite keep coherent. Conjuring a small bead of chi into my finger, I fired it at the emerald apparition, intending to dismiss it. On one hand, this is marvel and strange happenings like this are almost text book hero/villain origin stories; on the other, I already have a mission and have no desire to get caught up by the narrative gods is some jankey plott full of shenanigans.

Instead of vanishing, attacking me or pulling me off on my call to adventure however, the image stabilized into… me. Green me looked at real me from a sitting position in the air, one foot up and body curled around as though trying to hide something.

"Hello me, I don't have a lot of time, so listen closely and don't interrupt."

"Ah, shit. I hate this plotline. You bastard, what did you did to get us roped into this of all plotlines?" I groused, unfolding from the lotus position on the hotel bed.

Green me laughed quietly. "Don't cry too much, Days of Futures Past is far worse when you have to live it. Right now, we're borrowing Doc Stranges Time Stone. Tony doesn't know what we're doing with it, he thinks I'm trying to wake the doctor up, but right now, we're heading to the infinity war confrontation with Thanos. Yeah, that guy. I'm telling you this, because we fucked up but good. A LONG story short, don't go to the Ancient One. At least not until we have fuckoff powers. I did that tomorrow by your reckoning and ended up imprisoned within the mirror dimension for sixteen years. Kalecius sprung me loose to fight bald bitch and Strange and I'm still running around because as soon as he did so, raccoon boy fell for my sudden yet inevitable betrayal." Green me said, grinning almost crazily.

"Evil overlord jokes aside, that bald bitch takes her 'protect earth from dimensional invaders' job seriously and she sniffed us out the moment Mordo led us into her office. Didn't even consider helping us get home or get Nick. I've made myself invaluable to the good doctor though, which is how I knew how to contact you. If you want my advice, head to South America. You know the place. Shit, I've gotta go! I hope this is enough to change the timeline, good luck and godspeed."

With that, future me vanished as he was struck by a beam of green light. Alright then... seems like a change of plans is in order.


End file.
